User:HistoryofIran/Zand dynasty

The Zand dynasty was an Iranian dynasty founded by Karim Khan Zand ((r. 1751 – 1779))

The aim of the dynasty was at first to restore Safavid rule, but this eventually changed into an independent effort to bring back prosperity and tranquility to the country. Karim has a longstanding reputation for being the most benevolent Iranian ruler during the Islamic era.

Origins
The Zand tribe was a small pastoral Lak group living in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, mostly around the towns of Pari and Kamazan, close to Malayer. Persian and foreign writers have classified the Zands and their neighbors as both Kurds and Lors. This confusion is caused by the Zand tribe residing between the border of Lorestan and Kurdistan, where the dialects and traditions of the Kurds and Lors are mixed together. However, sources show that the Zands saw themselves, or at least were seen as, being very different from their neighbors, such as the Feyli Lors and the Kurds of Ardalan. The Lak tribes, whose language is more Kurdish than Lori, had settled in the northernmost region of Lorestan either through immigration or resettlement by Shah Abbas I ((r. 1588 – 1629)), the Safavid shah (king) of Iran.

Background
In 1722, the Safavid government collapsed following their surrender to the Afghans during the siege of their capital, Isfahan. It was during the Afghan invasion that the Zands made their first noticeable appearance. A local bandit named Mahdi Khan Zand emerged during this period, leading a continuous guerilla campaign against the Ottoman Empire, who had taken advantage of the turmoil in Iran by seizing the western provinces of Iran, including Kermanshah. The Russian Empire under Peter the Great ((r. 1721 – 1725)) had also capitalized on the situation, seizing the Iranian holdings in Gilan, Mazandaran, Astarabad, and most of the Caucasus. The Russians, Ottomans and Afghans were soon all repelled from Iran by the military leader Nader Qoli Beg (the future Nader Shah), who became the de facto ruler of the country.

In 1732, Nader sent a force under Baba Khan Chavoshlu to punish Mahdi Khan and his group of bandits. By using deception, Baba Khan Chavoshlu managed to acquire the trust of the Zand leaders. He then had Mahdi Khan and 400 Zand tribesmen killed, destroyed all of their tents and belongings, and transferred the leaders along with a sizable number of families to northern Khorasan. They spent the following fifteen years in exile at Abivard and Darra Gaz, suffering from Turkmen attacks while the majority of their fighting men most likely accompanied Nader's army on its constant marches over a distance spanning from Baghdad to Delhi. By the end of 1735, Nader set his sights on the throne, as he believed his campaigns had stabilised the country and brought him enough fame. On 8 March 1736, he was crowned the new shah of Iran, marking the start of the Afsharid dynasty.

Conflict, anarchy, and repressive governance characterized Nader Shah's reign during that decade. After he gained a reputation as a brutal and unjust despot, he was killed by his own soldiers in 1747. His empire then quickly fell apart, leading to the division of Iran into various entities. At the time of Nader Shah's death, there were only about thirty to forty Zand families in Darra Gaz. They had originally been led by two brothers of the Bagala branch—Inaq (the eldest) and Budaq, who by then were already deceased or retired in their hometown, as their sons took on the leadership. The sons of Budaq were Zaki Khan Zand and Eskandar Khan Zand, while the sons of Inaq were Karim Khan Zand and Sadeq Khan Zand, the former being the eldest.

Karim Khan, who had served in the army of Nader Shah, ended up being acknowledged as the main leader of the Zands. It is uncertain how he rose to power, and if it occurred before or after the Zands returned home.

Decline
Given that his two adult sons, Abol-Fath Khan Zand and Mohammad-Ali Khan Zand, were unfit for ruling, Karim Khan most likely anticipated that Sadeq Khan would take over as his successor. However, since Sadeq Khan was occupied with controlling Basra, he did not arrive in time to prevent his rival Zand khans.

Imperial ideology
The aim of the dynasty was at first to restore Safavid rule, but this eventually changed into an independent effort to bring back prosperity and tranquility to the country.

The distinguishing quality of Karim Khan's leadership came from his refusal to exercise royal authority independent of nominal Safavid sovereignty. However, his decision to continue serving as vakil al-dowleh ("deputy of the state") marked a subtle change from his previous role as the regent of a prince distantly related to the Safavid dynasty and of no importance. Moreover, he appears to have tacitly changed his authority from Safavid kingship to that of representing the people by using the title of Vakil ol-Ra'aya ("deputy of the people"). The subtle change reflected Karim Khan's standing among his subjects, particularly the urban people. He also drew on Iranian monarchy traditions that were directly related to the Fars province in order to distance himself from the distressing events of recent times.

Karim Khan attempted to recreate the territorial Iran of the Safavid era, just like Nader Shah and Agha Mohammad Khan. A common reference for consecutive rulers was Nader Shah's mention of Iran's established borders during the Safavid dynasty. Karim Khan made use of the same justification for similar land dispute resolutions.

Court and administration
When compared to the complex structure of hierarchy and ceremony that distinguished the Safavid court, Karim Khan's household in Shiraz was smaller, simpler, and more focused on real administrative and military requirements than on the lavish display of the Safavid shah. The Zand nobility was a remnant of the Safavid nobility and was later almost entirely absorbed into the Qajar nobility. As with previous dynasties, the official language and court literature was in Persian, and the majority of the chancellors, ministers, and bureaucrats were well-educated and talented Persian speakers.

The central government was under the complete control of Karim Khan. Historical documents do contain occasional references to the established Safavid court offices and protocols under the Zands, but nothing suggests that the chief minister (etemad ol-dowleh, sadr-e azam) and resident court amirs (the qurchi-bashi, qollar-aghasi, eshik-aqasi-bashi, and tofangchi-aghasi) formed the "close council of state" as they did in the late Safavid era. Under Karim Khan, no government official attained significant importance. Instead, he gave his kinsmen and trusted tribal leaders the responsibility for military campaigns and governance. Local administrators, who were all directly accountable to him, were given charge of the provinces. When a Zand prince was given a title, it was more like a honorific rather than a official position in the government.

The vazir-e divan was Karim Khan's direct subordinate in the bureaucracy. The first to occupy that office under him was Mirza Aqil Esfahani, who was executed in 1763 and succeeded by Mirza Mohammad Ja'far Esfahani. The office of mostowfi ol-mamalek was almost equally important and was held by Mirza Mohammad Borujerdi and Mirza Mohammad Hossein Farahani in succession. Karim Khan treated the people holding these senior administrative and senior fiscal positions as nothing more than secretarial assistants, treating them more like friends than colleagues.

For the first time since the era of the Buyid dynasty (934–1062), Iran's center of power shifted towards the south with the Zands.

Religious policy
Karim Khan might have been anticipated to seek the ulama's approval for his unusual position as the head of an nominally neo-Safavid (but in reality kingless) monarchy. However, he refused to comply with this. By minting coins under the name of the hidden imam, erecting mosques and shrines, and probably participating in Friday prayers—though this is not mentioned—Karim Khan supported the Shia beliefs in a traditional manner. Abu'l-Hasan Qazvini, who was one the more religious historians, claims that Karim Khan never prayed throughout his entire life. The government-appointed shaykh ol-eslam was the most important religious figure in Shiraz. His responsibilities seemed to be more constrained than those of his Safavid predecessors, and the title molla-bashi (chief theologian) created by Soltan Hoseyn was not retained.

Religious officers typically selected by the crown got degrees and set payments from Karim Khan, such as the guardian of the Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine at Ray in 1765 and the supervisor of religious activities at Qazvin. However, the lesser akhunds, theologians, Alavid seyyeds, and dervishes who anticipated living off of government pensions were let down. They were reportedly seen as parasites by Karim Khan, who claimed that by controlling pricing, they could live happily with what they had just like others. Presentations of the passion play, which reenacted the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, gained popularity from Karim Khan's reign onward, possibly as a result of the more tolerant religious climate.

Both Karim Khan in 1764 and Ali-Morad Khan in 1781 issued farmans (royal edicts) that ensured freedom of residence, worship, and trade to Christian missionary groups in Iran, including the Carmelites, Benedictines, Jesuits, Capuchins, Augustinians, and others. The only requirement was that they behaved in a manner that did not anger the Shia and its supporters.

Military
The Zand army was also composed of Georgians, who formed a large part of Ali Morad Khan's contingent. Karim Khan's tupchi-bashi (master of ordnance) was also a Georgian.

Coinage
Various anonymous or semi-anonymous currencies were struck by Karim Khan and his successors, but the abbasi of 4.6 gram and the rupee of 11.5 gram seemed to be the most common. Isfahan, Kashan, Yazd, Shiraz, Tabriz, Qazvin, Rasht, Mazandaran, and the court mint were the main coin mints under Karim Khan. There was no monetary unity in Iran even though Karim Khan was acknowledged as the overlord of the majority of the country after 1763, as many regions remained independent or semi-autonomous. This was especially true for the semi-autonomous local khans that controlled the Caspian and Caucasian regions, as well as Khorasan, which was ruled by the Durranids and Afsharids.

A number of these khanates, including Ganja, Shirvan, Shaki, Derbent, and Karabakh, produced their own coins, first in the name of Nader Shah and then in the name of Karim Khan. A large portion of their coinage was completely nameless by the end of the 18th-century. While a few uncommon issues of Derbent contain a vague reference to one of their khans, none of the khans ever put their names on their coins, due to lacking the legitimacy of an sovereign monarch and any claims to independence. These northern Iranian coins were made entirely of silver and copper.

Population
Roughly between the 1730s and the 1780s, hundreds of literate and renowned Iranians escaped to India due to the devastating circumstances. Many of them, including Abol-Hasan Golestaneh, expressed regret. The latter was a hostage in Karim Khan's entourage during the struggle for supremacy in western Iran, but in 1756 he managed to escape to the Shia shrine city of Najaf and subsequently to India, where he reunited with his family. Three of his uncles had served Nader Shah, but two of them fell out of favor and fled to India. His Mojmel al-tavarikh, a comprehensive history of the early Zand period, was written there in Murshidabad in 1782. Native Jews, Armenians, and other Christians, who were frequent targets of extortion and persecution, also migrated in very large numbers. Between 1742 and 1758, refugees settled in Mughal India, Bengal, Ottoman Iraq and Yemen, giving rise to a new generation of Iranians and Armenians. Baghdad and the adjacent shrine towns were home to an estimated 100,000 Iranian refugees, and Basra was claimed to be two-thirds occupied by refugees.

While European and Iranian emigrants eagerly scanned the horizon for signs that "Persia would soon be reunited under one chief, which would undoubtedly lead to the reestablishment of trade, so long interrupted," rumors of Karim Khan's victories and of his fair rule started to spread in the mid-1750s, which convinced many refugees to come back. By 1760, every day refugees were returning to Iran. Thousands of them from all social classes arrived along the now-secure caravan routes.

The population of Isfahan had decreased to perhaps 20,000 by 1750 from what may have been between 250,000 to 500,000 during the Safavid era. It increased to an estimated 40,000–50,000 by 1772. Even though Shiraz appeared to be "demolished and destroyed... altogether depopulated and empty of Christians" in 1756, refugees from Isfahan, especially Armenians from the suburb of New Julfa, were already making their way there every day. According to John R. Perry; "There are no contemporary estimates of the population of Shiraz under the Vakil, but it seems reasonable to assume that between 1759 and 1779 it grew at a much faster rate than Isfahan, reaching roughly the same population as the latter, though within a much more compact urban area."

Shiraz lost around half of its population following its sack by Agha Mohammad Khan, numbering 20,000. Other cities in central Iran, like Qom, reportedly experienced a revival under Karim Khan's rule after suffering under the Afghans, Afsharids and the Zand-Qajar conflicts.

The Armenians and Jews
Many of the Armenians of New Julfa and Peria who had fled Iran, returned to the country by settling in Shiraz, which welcomed their return. The Armenian population in Shiraz, whose quarter was located in the western corner by the Kazerun Gate, was primarily engaged in viticulture and wine trade. They also had their own mayor, and the government promoted their settlement by granting them villages around the capital. Mkrtic Vardapet, the Armenian prelate, divided his time between New Julfa and Shiraz every year for six months. Shiraz became the largest Jewish hub in Iran as a result of the return of many Jews, whose population may have decreased by about 20,000 between 1747 and 1779. They paid a special tax in exchange for being given their own section of land west of the bazaar. Although they seemed to be struggling financially in 1765, they were not the target of any persecution until after Karim Khan's death in 1779.

Paintings
The Zand paintings popularized the depiction of female entertainers, which the early Qajar period artists later carried on. A late Safavid development, possibly influenced by Dutch and Italian portrait paintings, was the large-scale oil painting on canvas that celebrated court life and revelry. However, it was during the Zand era that the internal affairs of the harem came to dominate a style of painting known for its representations of ladies, alcohol, and music. In portraits from the Zand and Qajar eras, uncovered women were depicted in situations that were restricted to the public, which is undoubtedly a reflection of the patrons' desire to avoid violating Sharia laws and drawing the protests of the ulama.

Cultural patronage
According to the Italian scholar Alessandro Bausani: "The eighteenth century, which in Europe (and partly also in India, for example) was a ferment of renewal, is the darkest and most sterile period in Persian literature and culture." Scholars of Persian literature have also made a similar conclusion. John Perry commented on these statements: "While regrettably true of literature, this view is somewhat too sweeping to be fair to the fine and applied arts." Like Nader Shah, Karim Khan was uninterested in poetry panegyric and had no more than a passing tolerance for history. He supported the court artisans and artists, albeit in an indifferent manner.

The numerous artists active during Karim Khan's time who were born in or educated in Isfahan, many of whom carry the surname "Esfahani," can be considered as representations of the lengthy political and cultural traditions of the Safavid court; they account for at least seventeen of the twenty-seven identified by Abu'l-Hasan Mostawfi Ghaffari. In the 1750s, some people—including the poet Hazin Lahiji—had immigrated to India. Others, like Vafa of Qom, departed for India under Nader Shah's rule but later came back to Iran under Karim Khan. During the interim period, a large number of people, primarily in the central region of Isfahan, Qom, and Kashan, remained in Iran. These people included Moshtaq, Azar Bigdeli, Hatef Esfahani, and Rafiq. Shiraz largely took up Isfahan's role as the patronage hub.

Seven calligraphers, including Mohammad Hashem Zargar, and least as many poets, including Azar Bigdeli, and the doctor Mirza Mohammad Nasir left Isfahan to settle in Shiraz. One of the factors behind Isfahan's loss as the literary center of Iran is reported by Abd al-Razzaq Beg Donboli. The city's poets, including Azar Bigdeli, were actively supported by the governor Mirza Abd ol-Vahhab Musavi. However, after the latters death in 1759/60, the governorship of Isfahan was given to the tyrannical figure Hajji Agha Mohammad Ranani. In 1763/64, disgruntled poets and other prominent individuals sent a delegation to Karim Khan in which they attempted to have Hajji Agha replaced. After their efforts were unsuccessful, some of them relocated to Shiraz.

Legacy and assessment
Karim Khan's reign is considered the most benevolent and long-lasting endeavor since 1722 to maintain a nominal Safavid rule. His demeanor contrasted Nader Shah's cruel temperament, combining political wisdom and soldierly bravery with goodness, intelligence, and friendliness—a unique combination, especially when compared to his peers. One of the most peaceful periods in Iran's early modern history occurred during his more than two decades of rule.