150

The Zands

1164–1209/1751–94

Persia, excepting Khurasan

In the chaos which followed Nādir Shāh’s death, various military chiefs seized power in the provinces of Persia. His Afghan commander Aḥmad Abdālī founded in Kandahar an important Afghan state, whose territories included Nādir’s conquests in north-western India (see below, no. 175). In Khurasan, the Afshārid Shāh Rukh retained a precarious power as the puppet of local commanders. In the Caspian provinces, the Qājārs maintained their power-base (see below, no. 151), while in Azerbaijan another of Nādir’s Afghan generals, Āzād, established himself. In southern Persia, the main force was initially the Bakhtiyārī leader ‘Alī Mardān, who had taken Isfahan and raised to the throne there a fainéant Ṣafawid, Ismā‘īl III (1163/1750) (see above, no. 148). ‘Alī Mardan’s lieutenant and sardār or commander of the forces was Muḥammad Karīm Zand, from a minor tribe of Lurs in the central Zagros Mountains; and when ‘Alī was murdered, Muḥammad Karīm made himself sole ruler in southern Persia.

He still had a lengthy struggle with the Qājār Muḥammad Ḥasan Khān before his authority over the greater part of Persia outside Khurasan was made firm. Muḥammad Karīm never himself assumed the title of Shāh, but reigned from Shiraz as wakīl al-dawla or regent for Ismā‘īl III. His reign of almost thirty years was one of clemency and moderation, and the land flourished under his enlightened rule; among other things, commercial relations with Britain via Bushire (Būshahr) on the Persia Gulf were encouraged. But his death was the signal for disastrous succession disputes to break out within the Zand family. ‘Alī Murād finally secured the throne, but died soon afterwards, and in the reign of Ja‘far the power of the Zands’ rivals the Qājārs grew until the Zands had to abandon Iṣfahān to them. The last Zand, Lutf ‘Alī Khān, a popular ruler and an able general, took up arms against the Qājārs and was successful for a while. But in 1209/1794 he was captured at Kirmān by Agha Muḥammad Khān Qājār and brutally murdered; the whole of Persia now became united under one monarch for the first time since the brief career of Nādir Shāh and the heyday of the Ṣafawids.

Lane-Poole, 260, 262; Zambaur, 261, 264; Album, 58–9.

John R. Perry, Karim Khan Zand. A History of Iran, 1747–1779, Chicago and London 1979, with a genealogical table at p. 296.

idem, ‘The Zand dynasty’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, VII, 63–103, and Gavin R. G. Hambly, ‘Āghā Muḥammad Khān and the establishment of the Qājār dynasty’, in ibid., 104–26, with a genealogical table at p. 961.