Karim
Khan, founder of the Zand Empire
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After death of the
Afsharid ruler Nader Shah (1747), Iran was dominated
by three rules. Muhammad Hussain Qajar possessed northern
region. The southern area was under the control of Karim
Khan Zand, and Khorasan on eastern area was ruled by
the Afsharids. Muhammad Hussain Qajar had been killed,
and Karim Khan Zand took over the power of whole Iran,
including Khorasan; and founded the rule of Zand dynasty
in Iran in 1750.
Karim Khan was one
of the greatest generals of Nader Shah. In the chaotic
aftermath of Nader Shah's assassination in 1747, Karim
Khan became a major contender for power but was challenged
by several adversaries. In order to add legitimacy to
his claim, Karim Khan in 1757 placed on the throne the
infant Shah Ismail III, the grandson of the last official
Safavid king. Ismail was a figurehead king, real power
being vested in Karim Khan, who never claimed the title
of shahanshah ("king of kings") but used that of vakil
("regent"). By 1760 Karim Khan had defeated all his
rivals and controlled all of Iran except Khorasan, in
the northeast, which was ruled by Shah Rokh, the blind
grandson of Nader Shah. During Karim Khan's rule Iran
recovered from the devastation of 40 years of war. He
made Shiraz his capital, constructing many fine buildings.
Moreover, he reorganized the fiscal system of the kingdom,
removing some of the heavy burdens of taxation from
the agricultural classes. An active patron of the arts,
he attracted many scholars and poets to his capital.
Karim Khan also opened
Iran to foreign influence by allowing the English East
India Company to establish a trading post in Bushire,
the Persian Gulf port (1763). In advancing his policy
of developing trade, in 1775-76 he attacked and captured
Basra, the Ottoman port at the mouth of the Persian
Gulf, which had diverted much of the trade with India
away from Iranian ports.
The civil war that
followed Karim Khan's death ended only with the final
establishment of the Qajar dynasty in 1796.
Karim
Khan
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Karim Khan Zand ended
the anarchy after Nadir Shah's assassination and from
1765 ruled over most of Iran from Shiraz. Like the Mamluk
rulers of Iraq, he was interested in the economic returns
derived from fostering European trade in the Persian
Gulf. His brother, Sadiq Khan, took Basra in 1776 after
a protracted and stubborn resistance directed by its
Mamluk governor, Süleyman Aga, and held it until Karim
Khan's death in 1779. Süleyman then returned from Shiraz,
where he had been held captive, and in 1780 was given
the governorship of Baghdad, Basra, and Shahrizor by
Sultan Abdülhamid I. Known as Büyük (The Great) Süleyman
Pasa, his rule (1780-1802) is generally acknowledged
to represent the apogee of Mamluk power in Iraq. He
imported large numbers of Mamluks to strengthen his
own household, curbed the factionalism among rival households,
eliminated the Janissaries as an independent local force,
and fostered trade and agriculture. His attempts to
control the Arab Bedouin were less successful, and Wahhabi
incursions from Arabia into Al-Hasa and along the fringes
of the desert, climaxing in the sack of the Shi'ite
shrine Karbala' in 1801, added to his difficulties.
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