Karīm Khān Zand: a history of Iran, 1747-1779 9780226660981, 9780226661025

Table of contents :
Frontmatter (page N/A)
List of Illustrations (page vi)
Preface (page vii)
Abbreviations (page ix)
Explanatory Notes (page x)
Prologue: The Historical Background (page 1)
1. The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 (page 11)
1. The Bakhtyari-Zand Regency (page 13)
2. Karim Khan as Vakil (page 32)
3. Azad Khan Afghan (page 48)
4 Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar (page 62)
5. Afghans and Afshars (page 79)
2 Consolidation and Expansion (page 95)
6. Internal Dissension (page 97)
7. Fars and the Centraal Provinces (page 110)
8. Kerman and Yazad (page 124)
9. The Qajar Revival (page 137)
10. The Persian Gulf (page 150)
11. The Siege of Basra (page 167)
12 Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra (page 184)
3. Iran under Karim Khan (page 203)
13. Government, Land, and People (page 205)
14 Administration, Revenue, and Society (page 223)
15. Trade and Foreign Relations (page 246)
16. The Vakil at Home (page 272)
Epilogue: Karim Khan's Successors (page 297)
Appendix: Survey and Assessment of the Sources (page 303)
Bibliography (page 317)
Index (page 327)

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Karim Khan Zand

a

PUBLICATIONS OF THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

Richard L. Chambers, General Editor

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6 The Modern Arabic Literary Language By Jaroslav Stetkevych 7 Iran: Economic Development under Dualistic Conditions By Jahangir Amuzegar and M. Ali Fekrat

8 The Economic History of Iran, 1800-1914 By Charles Issawi 9 The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture By Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiar

10 The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier By Andrew C. Hess 11 Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World By Alexandre A. Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush

7a

Karim Khan Zand O

GY

A History of [ran, 1747-1779

John R. Perry

Publications of the the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, No. 12

The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

JOHN R. PERRY is assistant professor of Persian language and

Civilization at the University of Chicago. He has translated Mikhail Naimy's A New Year: Stortes, Autobiography, and Poems

from Arabic and is the author of many scholarly articles.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London (©) 1979 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. Published 1979 Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Perry, John R

Karim Khan Zand.

(Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies ; no. 12) Bibliography: p. Includes index.

1. Ivan--History--16th-18th centuries. 2. Karim Khan Zand, Shah of Iran, d. 1779. I. Title. II. Series: (Chicago. University. Center for Middle Easter Studies. Publications ; no. 12.

DS295.P47 955'.03 78-26553 ISBN O-226-66098-2

Contents

List of Illustrations v1 Preface Vii Abbreviations ix Explanatory Notes x

Prologue: The Historical Background 1

PART ONE: THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN WESTERN IRAN, 1747-63

1. The Bakhtyari-Zand Regency 13 2. Karim Khan as Vakil 32

3. Azad Khan Afghan 48

4, Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar 62

5. Afghans and Afshars 79

6. Internal Dissension 97 7. Fars and the Central Provinces 110 8. Kerman and Yazd 124 9. The Revival 137 10. TheQajar Persian Gulf 150

PART TWO: CONSOLIDATION AND EXPANSION, 1763-79

11. The Siege of Basra 167 12. Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 184

PART THREE: IRAN UNDER KARIM KHAN

13. Government, Land, and People 205

14. Administration, Revenue, and Society 223

15. Trade and Foreign Relations 246

16, The Vakil at Home 272

Epilogue: Karim Khan's Successors 297

Index 327

Bibliography 317

Appendix: Survey and Assessment of the Sources 503

Vv

Illustrations

Figures

1. Contemporary portrait of Karim Khan xii

2. Plan of Basra 96 3. Plan of Shiraz 273 4. The Royal Palace at Tehran 284

5. Hall of Audience at Shiraz 284 6. A Corner of the Arg, Shiraz 285 7. Karim Khan and Some of His Courtiers 285 Tables

1. Administration, Revenue, and Population under Karim Khan 230-31

2. Genealogical Table of the Zands 296

Preface

The fifty years between the death of Nader Shah and the establishment of the Qajar Dynasty is the first, and also the most obscure, period of modern Iranian

history. Its claim to be the first is founded not on any single outstanding event, such as the French or American revolutions of the same era, but rather on a series of subtler and more gradual changes in the medieval Iran of the "Great Sophy"' and of Nader Shah, the "last great Asiatic conqueror.'’ Among these were the final loss of the old imperial outposts of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, and the first tentatives by Russia in the north and Britain in the south to establish their respective spheres of commercial (and later political) interest; the resumption of power by the Persian-speaking tribes of the central and southern Zagros to create a new "Iranian intermezzo' between the respective reigns of the Turkish Afshars and Qajars of the north; and the rejection of centralized despotism (whether theocratic or militaristic) in favor of a laissez faire coalition of interests. The results of all this remained to modify considerably the extent of the initial Qajar swing toward a new centralized imperium. That it is the most obscure period is due not so much to a dearth of source material as to the need for a full-scale collation and exposition of the ample and heterogeneous documentation available. Both the preceding period of the later Safavids and Nader Shah and the succeeding age of the Qajars have been examined to

a degree, but as yet the later Afsharids and the Zands have not been reprieved from their lengthy limbo. The present work, which has its origins in a doctoral dissertation submitted at the University of Cambridge in 1969, is an attempt to Supply a part of this need. In the intervening years, additional materials have come to light, and old ones have demanded new perspectives. The purpose, however, remains unchanged--to illustrate the acquisition, administration, and forfeiture of Iranian empire by a man extraordinary for his ordinary humanity in an age of conventional tyrants. The extent to which he was the creator, catalyst, or creature of his age may then be more fairly assessed. In pursuing this aim I have been aided and encouraged by so many people in Iran, Britain, and America (and several points in between) that it would be impossible to thank them all individually. Apart from those specifically acknowledged in footnotes, several friends, colleagues, and institutions merit particular mention here: Hamid Algar, who in conversation in Tehran first suggested the Zand period as a fruitful field of investigation; my supervisor Hubert Darke, Vil

Viii Preface Peter Avery, the late Laurence Lockhart, and the late Mojtaba Minovi, for help and guidance during the gestation of the original dissertation; members of the Middle East Centre, the Faculty of Oriental Studies, and Pembroke College at Cambridge University, of the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran and the Asia Institute of Pahlavi University in Shiraz, and my friends and colleagues at St. Andrews, Chicago, and elsewhere (notably Thomas Ricks) who have cheerfully given their time, material, and suggestions in the cause of Karim Khan; the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, for undertaking to publish the finished product; Judy Herder for typing the final copy, Christopher Muller-Wille for drafting the maps, and Rachel Lehr for help with the index. To all these and many others I extend my gratitude and hope that they will not think their efforts wasted. To Frederika, Rahim, and Sonya, special thanks for a great deal more.

J.R.P.

Abbreviations

ANP France, Affatres Etrangéres, Perse series at the Archives Nationales BP East India Company, Bombay Public Consultattons/Proceedings series Brieven Oost-Indische Compagnie, Bataviase Inkomende Brieven Overgekomen series

DM Daneshpazhuh, '"Dastur ol-Moluk-e Mirza Rafi°a va Tazkerat ol-Moluk-e Mirza Sami°a."

EI); EI, The Eneyelopaedia of Islam, 1st ed. (Leiden, 1913-38); 2d ed. (1954-)

FJI Iran, Setad-e Artesh, Farhang-e Joghrafiya-ye Iran FR East India Company, Persta and the Persian Gulf Records, vols. XV-XVII (Factory Records)

GD East India Company, Persia and the Persian Gulf Records, vols. VI-XIII (Gombroon Diary)

GM Ghaffari, Golshan-e Morad MAE France, Affaires Etrangéres, Perse series at the Archives du Ministére des Affaires Etrangéres MN E°temad ol-Saltana, Montagem-e Nagert

MI Golestana, Mojmal otl-Tavartkh RSN Hedayat, Rawzat ol-Safa-ye Nasert SP State Papers, Serzes S. P. Foretgn, Turkey TAD Mohammad Hashem, Tazgkera-ye Al-e Daud

TGG Nami, Tarikh-e Giti-gosha T™ Minorsky, ed., Tadhktrat al-Muluk

1X

Explanatory Notes

Transliteration. The transliteration is rigorous only in the footnotes, bibliography, and index, where a modified form of the Library of Congress system

(Persian) is used for words originally in Arabic script. In a specifically Arabic context, th replaces s and consonantal w replaces v; in Turkish words, treatment of vowels is more flexible. For well-known place names, the conventional English

form is used. In the text, transliteration is consistent with this usage, though diacritics are generally dispensed with as superfluous for the specialist and irrelevant to the nonspecialist. Chronology. The Islamic lunar calendar is used to express dates derived fron Oriental sources; points in the Iranian solar year and the Turkish twelve-year

cycle will be cited only for clarification. When a Hejri date is given, the corresponding Christian New Style date (Gregorian calendar) follows after an oblique stroke. Dates cited in footnote references to Russian sources and to East India Company sources before 14 September 1752 are Old Style (Julian calendar) and are adjusted to New Style by the addition of eleven days before appearing in context. Toponymy. Generally, contemporary place names (i.e., Safavid to Qajar) are employed, with present-day equivalents noted where applicable. Partial exceptions

are the use of Khuzestan for 'Arabestan (except in the title Vali-ye 'Arabestan) and Hamadan for Qalamraw 'Ali Shakar (both terms appear in eighteenth-century

texts). I have retained the useful designation Persian Iraq ('Fraq-e 'Ajam) for that area of western central Iran bounded to the north by Azerbaijan, to the south by Fars, to the west by the Zagros, and to the east by the Salt Desert, Since no convenient modern term exists for it. For the area known variously as Transcaucasia, northern Azerbaijan, or the eastern Caucasus, I have chosen the unashamedly Iranocentric "Transaraxia."' Other regions and districts will be de-

fined briefly in the footnotes or index. Wetghts and Measures. Distances are usually stated in miles; kilometers are used if derived from a map or gazetteer (such as FJI), and farsakhs if froma chronicle. The valuable term farsakh (parasang) has been retained, especially in the context of a military operation, in order to emphasize movement against time. Ideally the distance one can travel on foot over level ground in an hour, the far-

sakh is naturally at the mercy of regional and subjective fluctuation: estimates of its length vary from less than 3.5 to more than 4 miles. I have taken one farsakh as equivalent to roughly 3.75 miles or 6 kn. (cf. Houtum Schindler in x

Explanatory Notes x1 Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society: 58-88). Currency. No attempt has been made to estimate present-day values for the tuman or other units of currency in terms of either metal content or purchasing power. It appears from contemporary accounts that the tuman depreciated steadily as against sterling between late Safavid and mid-Qajar times: from £3 in Tavernier's time (1650s) it fell to 15 (Bombay) rupees or 37/6d. (£1,875) in 1760-

70, to £1 about the turn of the century and nine shillings (£0.45) in the 1850s. The tuman also varied in value from place to place within Iran and at Basra. For the purpose of relating sums quoted in sterling, rupees or rubles to the tuman during 1750-80, the following approximate scale has been applied: 1 tuman = £1.875 = 15 rupees = 18.75 rubles (based on information in Binning I, 277; Robert Stevens, 94-95; Parsons, 158; Kelly, 44; Amin, 9; Markova, 114).

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Prologue:

The Historical Background

Iran today is essentially the creation of the Safavid shahs. Broadly speaking, the geographical, religious, and political lines laid down by Shah Esma'il and his successors, notably Shah ‘Abbas (1588-1629), defined and directed the national ethos at least until the increasing influence of the West from mid-Qajar times on forced certain substantial revisions. Obviously few detailed analogies can seriously be drawn between the Iran of ‘Abbas the Great and that of Mohammad Reza

Pahlavi; but the tenacity of the Safavid Weltanschauung can clearly be seen during the intervening ages. It is impossible to appreciate the Afsharid, Zand, and early Qajar periods without an overall appreciation of, and constant appeal to, a background of Safavid concepts and institutions. This is all the more surprising when one remembers that for the last half-

century of its political existence, the Safavid state was little more than a hollow corpse, devoured by contrasting excesses of debauchery and piety, cruelty and pacifism, propped up only by the monumental achievements of its founders ;” that a violent Afghan invasion and occupation, along with Russian and Turkish incursions, Swept away this corpse and caused the country to be partitioned in the 1720s; and that first Nader Shah deliberately, then Karim Khan incidentally, created a state that was in many ways fundamentally at odds with the surviving Safavid spirit.”

This survival was manifested first of all politically, in the incredible Series of Safavid pretenders--at least a dozen--who appeared over the following fifty years.“ Some were undoubtedly genuine, some had their causes espoused by strong aspirants to power, and four--Tahmasb II and ‘Abbas III under Nader's tutelage, Solayman II in concert with the emirs of Mashhad, and Esma'il III under Karim Khan--were in fact raised to the throne. Nader Shah's usurpation of the monarchy merely interrupted this sequence; his attempt to substitute a form of the Sunni for the Shi'i faith (which had been one of the main ingredients of the 1. See, e.g., the summary by Hellmut Braun in The Muslim World, Part III,

a oS A comprehensive study of the reasons for this decline is given in Lockhart, The Fall of the Safavt Dynasty, 16-34; cf., however, Arunova and

Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo Nadir-Shakha, 5.

3. For a discussion of these and the following points, see my article "The Last Safavids."

4. Ibid. Short histories of most of these pretenders are also given by

Kuhmarra'i, 478-85. 1

2 Prologue: The Historical Background Safavid formula of state) failed to overcome popular repugnance and Ottoman mis-

trust; and his military conquests, which briefly transformed the essentially conServative Safavid state into an extensive Asiatic empire modeled on that of Timur, were nullified by his death.” The phenomenon of the "Spiritual" Safavid survival, as it was reasserted on Nader's assassination and ultimately assimilated and dissolved by Karim Khan, Will perhaps become clearer from part 3 of the history that follows. The Qajars, the last of the Qizilbash, though chronologically furthest removed, were spiritu-

ally the real inheritors of the Safavid estate. While Nader Shah's reign was a hostile interlude and Karim Khan's regency a rejection of both previous forms of despotism for a nonideological, pragmatic approach to government, the Qajars revived the theory and practice of dynastic absolutism by divine right. Agha Mohammad and Fath ‘Ali Shah were the political reincarnations of Shah Esma'il and

‘Abbas I, whatever the difference in personalities. But this theme is beyond the scope of the present work. One period must still be considered before approaching the Zands: that of Nader's immediate successors in Khorasan, the heartland of his empire, which was automatically relegated on his death to the position of a peripheral province of the new Iran--becoming for the space of a generation a protectorate of the even newer Afghanistan. The extortionate taxation and other cruel excesses of Nader's last years turned him into a feared and odious tyrant in the eyes of the subjects who had once admired him. Revolts sprang up all over his empire .° In Sistan the conqueror's nephew, 'Ali Qoli Khan, who had been sent to quell an insurrection, realized that he too had become an object of suspicion to the unbalanced ruler, and made common cause with the rebellious Sistanis, Baluchis, and Afghans he had been

fighting. The discontent of many years had at last found a focus. The rebel army moved on Khorasan, reaching Herat in Rabi' II 1160/April 1747, while Nader

Shah was still on his way back from crushing opposition in western Iran. On reaching Mashhad, Nader was faced with the more immediate danger of a rising by the Kurds of Khabushan (now known as Quchan) and at once marched against them.

On the eve of the fateful 11 Jomada II/20 June, his army of sixteen thousand camped at Fathabad, two hours from the rebels' fortress. The traditional hostility between Qizilbash and Afghan/Uzbek, which Nader had sought to submerge in his composite army, was again pushed to the surface. Fearing that he could no longer trust his Iranian officers, the conqueror summoned Ahmad Khan Abdali and other Afghan leaders, whose rise in his favor had

been largely the cause of their Iranian colleagues' alienation, and instructed them to arrest the principal Iranian chiefs on the following day and to kill any 5S. Nader Shah's achievements are assessed in detail in Lockhart, Wadir Shah, 266-81; but cf. Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo, 255-64. 6. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 259-60; Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo, 223-25;

cf. Brieven 2617 (1749), 43-45. The narrative of events in the remainder of this section is condensed from MI, 8-20; Bazin, 35-53; Lockhart, Wadir Shah, 260-63.

Prologue: The Historical Background 3 who might resist. This was reported by a spy to the prospective victims who, led by Saleh Khan Qirglu Afshar and Mohammad Khan Qajar of Erivan, resolved to slay

the tyrant that same night. Their nervous approach alerted their intended victin, but he was cut down by Saleh Khan before he could raise the alarm. His head was cut off by Mohammad Khan and sent to 'Ali Qoli with an invitation to ascend the throne. The conqueror's tents were looted, but his womenfolk were not molested; two of his chief ministers were killed and one, Hasan ‘Ali Beg Mo'ayyer olMamalek, who may have been privy to the plot, was spared. Iranian pickets were set up to prevent anybody--particularly the Afghans--leaving their posts. Despite these precautions, the four thousand-strong Afghan cavalry under Ahmad Khan had learned of the coup by dawn. Had the rest of the army retained cohesion, the detested Afghans would certainly have shared their master's fate; but whereas the Iranians, conscious of their freedom, had begun to relax discipline by morning, Ahmad Khan gathered his men together for a fighting retreat. According to Ahmad's biographer, the Afghans captured the whole of the army's artillery, took several prisoners, and fought their way out of the camp in good order. Striking due south to avoid Mashhad and Herat, now in the hands of 'Ali Qoli Khan, Ahmad Khan led his small band via Torbat-e Haydariya, Tun, and Qa'en-Whence 'Ali Qoli's garrison fled after a token resistance--to Qandahar, where he seized a treasure convoy bound from India to Nader's camp. In October of 1747 tie young Abdali chieftain was elected shah of the Afghans and, taking the title Dorr-e Dorran ("'Pearl of Pearls"), founded the Dorrani dynasty and modern Afghanistan.

Nader's camp completely disintegrated the morning after his murder. At Mashhad, where the main flood of officials, troops, and camp followers directed their uncertain steps, the Afghan garrison was prudently allowed to withdraw by the civil governor, Mir Sayyed Mohammad, superintendent (motavalli) of the shrine of the Imam 'Ali Reza. He refused admittance to Nader's eldest sons, Nasrollah Mirza and Emam Qoli Mirza, and invited 'Ali Qoli Khan to take over the capital. Upon arriving with his large army, ‘Ali Qoli confirmed the Sayyed in his position, distributed largesse among the troops and officials to secure support, and sent a Bakhtyari force under his Georgian gholam Sohrab Khan to reduce the impregnable natural fortress of Kalat, where Nader's sons were sheltering. This was taken

when the garrison, by accident or design, left a ladder against the cliff face. All Nader's issue were seized and butchered; even those of Nader's widows and concubines thought to be with child were disemboweled. The only child spared was Shahrokh, the tyrant's fourteen-year-old grandson by a daughter of Shah Soltan Hosayn, since he might prove useful as a puppet ruler should the populace prefer a Safavid scion to 'Ali Qoli. On 27 Jomada II 1160/6 July 1747, 'Ali Qoli ascended the throne under the name of ‘Adel Shah.®

7. See esp. al-Hosayni, 12a-13b; Ferrier, 68-69. 8. See also Mar“ashi, 96-97; TAD, 76a-b.

4 Prologue: The Historical Baekground The Dutch diarist at Bandar 'Abbas spoke for all, Iranian and foreigner alike, in observing that "with the murder of Nader Shah there was renewed hope

that the kingdom would at last find peace.'” But despite his personal popularity, enhanced by largesses and the proclamation of a three-year remission of taxes, the new king soon showed that he was not decisive enough in character to pull together his uncle's sprawling and largely ruined empire. Though urgently advised to march immediately to secure the old Safavid center of Isfahan, he appointed his younger brother Ebrahim as sardar (military governor) of that city and province while he remained for several months in Mashhad, carousing with his unpopular favorite Sohrab Khan, and his large army reduced the city and its environs to a state of famine + Once more the Khabushan Kurds were ordered to open their granaries to Supply the capital but were as reluctant to comply as they had been under Nader. "Adel Shah marched against them in the autumn of 1747, stormed their fortress, and put the garrison to the sword. On his return to Mashhad he executed several of his chief supporters on suspicion of conspiracy, notably Mohammad Khan Qajar, who had been one of the murderers of Nader Shah. By now the various tribal contingents attached to Nader's field army or transported to defend the frontiers of Khorasan were, like the Abdali Afghans, Seizing their chance to head homeward. The large Bakhtyari contingent under 'Ali Mardan Khan requested permission from the shah, when he still showed no signs of

setting off for Isfahan, to make their own way to its mountain hinterland; but "Adel, anxious to retain a strong standing army, refused. Nevertheless, the whole contingent set off quietly late in 1747 and had already put ten farsakhs behind them when their absence was discovered. Enraged, the shah sent Sohrab Khan in pursuit with a strong force. ‘Two days later the Georgian caught up with them and, without pausing to form up properly, charged headlong. The veteran Bakhtyari, obviously prepared for such an eventuality, routed their rash opponents and calmly continued on their way. Sohrab Khan and the remnants of his force returned to Mashhad, collecting the heads of Bakhtyari stragglers and anyone else they met on the way to mollify their frustration and qualify for the bounty promised by ‘Adel Shah on each head brought back. On arrival they decapitated the Lurs left in the city to make up a respectable tota1.14 Meanwhile Ebrahim Mirza was consolidating his hold over Persian Iraq, requiSitioning supplies for his army from Saleh Khan Bayat in Shiraz and perhaps already in secret correspondence with his future ally Amir Aslan Khan, Nader's sardar of Azerbaijan, who had so far withheld allegiance from the new shah. It 9. Brteven 2617 (1749), 177 ("door de massacre van de Nader Sjah goede hoop

overschied dat het Rijk eindelijk eens in rust gebragt werden zal"). Cf. GD VI, 12 October 1747. The narrative of events in this section is condensed chiefly

from Astarabadi, Jahangoshay, 428-32; Dorra, 711-18; Bazin, 54-58; MT, 24-32; Marfashi, 85, 98-103; TAD, 77b-82b. 10. GD VI, 16 October, 7 November 1747.

11. Ibid.; Bazin, 55-57; Olivier V, 456-57.

Prologue: The Historical Background 5 seems to have been suspicion of his brother's intentions that finally prompted "Adel Shah on 8 December to leave the accumulated treasures and creature comforts of Mashhad for Isfahan. Marching into Mazandaran, he set up a base at Ashraf (now called Behshahr) and, apparently to secure his communications between Mashhad

and Isfahan, spent the next five months in desultory operations against the Qajars under Mohammad Hasan Khan, long a fugitive from Nader.) On his way back from a skirmish with a Qajar-Turkman force on the banks of the Simbar, 'Adel Shah captured Mohanmad Hasan's four-year-old son Mohammad and

had him castrated. He was unable, however, either to capture or to lure into his power the Qajar himself and in the spring of 1748 continued his way westward. Both Ebrahim Mirza and Amir Aslan Khan continued to ignore ‘Adel Shah's summonses to court and finally revealed themselves openly in revolt: Amir Aslan killed the shah's envoys, and Ebrahim had the detested Sohrab Khan assassinated when the shah sent him ahead to Isfahan as his emissary and spy 29 Ebrahim next sent against Kermanshah a strong force that plundered the town, though it could make no impression on the nearby fortress--Nader's western bastion and arsenal-which was a key point for the control of Persian Iraq. But the garrison commanders Mirza Mohammad Taqi Golestana and Amir Khan 'Arab Mishmast judged it expedient

to make their submission to Ebrahim. The rebel army had now attracted almost every fragment of Nader's forces, both Iranian and Afghan-Uzbek, in western Iran; with this estimated force of twenty to thirty thousand men Ebrahim Mirza marched north to effect a junction with Amir Aslan Khan. "Adel Shah at last roused himself and, hastening from Gilan to the Khamsa region, stationed himself with his numerically superior army between the two rebel forces, somewhere between Zanjan and Soltaniya. His brother's force approached early in Jomada II 1161/June 1748, and so many of 'Adel Shah's officers fled or went over with their men at the first onslaught that Ebrahim gained a complete victory without even a major engagement. 'Adel Shah fled to Tehran, but was handed over to this brother by the governor and blinded. He had reigned less than one year 14 Amir Aslan Khan now proved a dubious ally; after suffering defeat near Maragha, he was handed over to Ebrahim by Kazem Khan Qaraja-daghi, to whom he had

fled for refuge, and was executed. With all opposition apparently eliminated, Ebrahim marched into Tabriz and on 17 Zu'l-Hejja 1161/8 December 1748 was pro-

claimed shah. But the pattern once set was to be repeated. Nine weeks previously, on 8 Shawwal/i October, neglected Khorasan had reasserted itself: the young Shahrokh Mirza was elevated to the throne by a junta of those officers, chiefly Kurdish and Bayat tribesmen, who had stayed in Mashhad > 12. GD VI, 18 and 23 December 1747. 13. GD VI, 11 June 1748; Hanway II, 592-94.

14, See Hanway II, 595; Brosset, 229. 15. See Poole, 90; Saidmuradov, 58; SP 97/34, 48.

6 Prologue: The Historical Background Anticipating this, Ebrahim had sent to Mashhad before his own "accession" to invite Shahrokh to proceed to Isfahan for his coronation. This obvious trap was refused. After spending a few months in Tabriz to consolidate his position in Azerbaijan and augment his army, Ebrahim marched next spring against Mashhad. He left his heavy baggage and prisoners at Qom, in the care of Mir Sayyed Mohammad (who had been taken by 'Adel Shah along with his army) and a mixed Iranian and Afghan-Uzbek garrison, and in Jomada II 1162/June-July 1749 reached the village of Sorkha, near Semnan. Although Shahrokh's army was still at Astarabad, 150 miles distant, the forces of disunity latent in Ebrahim's motley army burst into the open: Amir Khan Tupchi-bashi, who had joined the rebel army from Kermanshah, was

marching one day ahead with the artillery and, electing to side with Shahrokh, turned his guns on the rest of the army, which promptly disintegrated. Ebrahim fled back to Qom but was denied entry by the motavalli, who on receiving news of the defeat had organized the Iranian troops to eject the Afghans and Uzbeks and defend the town. Deserted even by his Afghan companions, Ebrahim finally took refuge in a fortress near Qazvin, where the garrison handed him over to Shahrokh's agents. He was blinded and sent in chains, together with his own former prisoner ‘Adel Shah, to Mashhad; the latter was tortured to death on arrival, but Ebrahim did not even survive the journey. The youth and popularity of the new shah at first gave hopes of a stable

reign. Despite continued advice to set up the capital at Isfahan, his selfappointed guardians preferred to keep him at Mashhad, where they could comfortably use both the king and Nader's treasury for their own advancement. A considerable

proportion of the treasure, army, and prisoners left from the debacle of both ‘Adel Shah and Ebrahim was still at Qom in the charge of Mir Sayyed Mohammad, who

himself, as a grandson of the Safavid Shah Solayman and an influential figure in both Qom and Mashhad, was a political danger whom it would be well to have under

surveillance and, if possible, to eliminate. Accordingly, he was invited, with assurances of safe conduct, to bring his charges to Mashhad and assist in the government 2°

The Sayyed had already been urged by Safavid partisans to proclaim himself shah in Isfahan with their support but had refused. He now professed loyalty to Shahrokh Shah and, with the whole paraphernalia of the preceding Afsharids, set off from Qom to Yazd and thence across the desert to Mashhad. Here he was welcomed with every appearance of sincerity; after paying his respects at the shrine, he attended a somewhat strained reception in the palace gardens, at which both he and Shahrokh apparently knew that only the arrival of an enthusiastic

16. 2 1.8 FARS SINCE THE DEATH OF NADER SHAH

Fars and its capital, barely recovered from the mauling it had received from Nader during the revolt of Taqi Khan Shirazi in 1744,°° had on the tyrant's death been plunged once more into strife and anarchy. Mirza Mohammad, the future kalantar cf Fars, on whose memoirs Fasa'i bases most of his narrative of these events, was aksent from Shiraz on a tax-collecting tour escorted by a thousand Iranian cavalry when the news of Nader's murder arrived, and self-seeking elements at once elbowed their way to the fore. Nader's chief officer in Shiraz, Mohammad Khan Shaterbashi, in concert with Mohammad 'Ali Beg, the governor of Lar, planned to kill the Civil governor (saheb-ekhteyar)--Mirza Mohammad's maternal uncle, Mirza Mohammad

Hosayn--together with his colleagues, and appropriate the treasury. But they failed to obtain the expected support of the Afghan and Uzbek contingents, who remained loyal or at least neutral under the authority of Mohammad Reza Beg Qarachurlu; he joined the returning Mirza Mohammad with reinforcements and together they

defeated and killed the muitineers. They distributed the treasury to Nader's troops who--Iranian, Afghan, and Uzbek--contentedly dispersed homeward.

'Adel Shah soon tempered the Shirazis' jubilation at being for once independent under their own leaders by sending Saleh Khan Bayat as sardar.°" He shrewdly recognized the popular prestige of the saheb-ekhteyar and his nephew and soon identified himself with their aspirations and with popular antipathy to the Naderite faction. One month later, when 'Adel's appointee Mirza Abu'l-Hasan Shirazi commenced his duties as beglerbegi of Fars and the Garmsir, he was met on his return to Shiraz from his first tour of Lar by a united front comprising Mirza Mohammad, the saheb-ekhteyar, and Saleh Khan, who politely but firmly turned him away to Isfahan. During the winter of 1747-48 Shiraz suffered greatly from Ebrahim Mirza's extortions for his army in Isfahan, but when Ebrahim crowned himself shah in Tabriz the following winter, Saleh Khan withheld formal recognition. His

51. Hovhanyants, 281. 52. TGG, 17; MI, 180.

95. See Lockhart, Wadir Shah, 242. The narrative of events in this section 1s condensed chiefly from Kalantar, 31-35; Fasa'i I, 201-7. See also Brieven 2658 (1751), 37-38; Bakhtyadri, 475.

54. GD VI, 12 February, 2 March 1748. Saleh Khan, as a chief of the Khorasan Bayat, received a written invitation to Nader's qurultay on the Dasht-e Moghan in 1148/1736 (Dehgan, 54); Mirza Mohanmad was also present (see appendix)--thus the two may well have met before Sdleh's appointment to Shiraz.

28 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 policy was apparently justified when envoys from Shahrokh confirmed him and his

two colleagues in their posts. Ebrahim was, however, still a danger to them, and Saleh sent his partners on what the Kalantar claims was a fool's errand to recruit provincial levies while he himself prepared to flee to Khorasan with the remainder of the treasury. He got as far as Darab, where he was delayed by the townsmen's refusal to supply provisions; and meanwhile--probably in June of 1749--Ebrahim's beglerbegi, Mohammad Taqi Khan Boghayeri, entered Shiraz unopposed.?” However, Saleh Khan's disgrimtled

colleagues now persuaded him to return, and with the help of their newly acquired army they drove Ebrahim's men from the city. Then came news that Ebrahim had empowered Fath 'Ali Khan Afshar to secure Shiraz and that he was on his way from Isfahan with a strong army. The saheb-ekhteyar was again sent out to recruit help, while Saleh Khan fled to Yazd and Mirza Mohammad withdrew south to Firuzabad to await developments. Fath 'Ali Khan took over Shiraz unopposed, but the saheb-ekhteyar had mean-

while recruited five to six thousand troops from the Garmsir under ‘Abd o1-'A1i Dashtestani and was advancing northward. Fath 'Ali proved as astute a diplomat as he was a redoubtable soldier, and when their armies met four farsakhs north of Shiraz, he opened negotiations that ended in a satisfactory compromise: 'Abd ol‘Ali was sent home with the title of khan and the saheb-ekhteyar accompanied Fath 'Ali into Shiraz to cooperate in the administration. When Ebrahim's rule collapsed later that same summer, Saleh Khan Bayat and Mirza Mohammad marched from

their refuge at Yazd to Abarqu, close to the Shiraz-Isfahan road, with a thousand men provided by the governor, and Fath 'Ali Khan advanced from Shiraz to quash

this threat. As soon as he left the town, ‘Abd ol-'Ali Khan Dashtestani, having by this time returned to Shiraz, looted his baggage and imprisoned his family and friends. Although the saheb-ekhteyar at once restored his family to him, the Afshar khan judged it wisest to cut his losses and, avoiding Saleh Khan's force, retired to Isfahan. Saleh Khan Bayat, assisted by Mohammad and his uncle the saheb-ekhteyar, resumed and maintained his rule through the next turbulent eighteen months until the arrival of 'Ali Mardan Khan. °° Taking with him the puppet king, 'Ali Mardan approached Shiraz with a force estimated at fifteen thousand, about the middle of October 1750.°’ Saleh Khan, 55. Kalantar, 35-36; Brieven 2658, 162 (7 July 1749). S6. The Kalantar, with characteristic self-importance, is at pains throughout to magnify his role and that of his uncle at the expense of Saleh Khan and other officials. Contemporary European observers, however, mention only Saleh Khan as the real authority in Shiraz, Fars, and even Bandar “Abbas (cf. Brieven 70989 ey VI, 24 October, 3 and 4 November 1750. Fasa'i (I, 207) followed by Bakhtyari (475) states that SAli Mardan entered Shiraz in Jomada II 1165/May 1752 and stayed six months; but the British and Dutch reports provide a more plausible chronology. The Kalantar, moreover, mentions that ©Ali Mardan's extortions were carried out in winter.

The Bakhtyart-Zand Regency 29 deserted by his more prudent partners, raised a scratch army and advanced to meet him only to be put to flight. For a few days more he held the town, and then slipped away to Isfahan. 'Ali Mardan took over undefended Shiraz, from where over

the next four months "that dog . . . that bastard . . ."' (to use the Kalantar's oft-repeated epithets for the self-styled vakil ol-dawla) systematically denuded Fars and neighboring regions of all resources. Ignoring the saheb-ekhteyar's pleas of indigence, he replaced him with the quisling Saleh Darugha and began collecting the next three years' taxes on the spot, together with enforced "presents" amounting to 4000 tumans. He commandeered iron, charcoal, rope, and horses for casting and transporting cannon, and in three weeks had extorted as much as 6006 tumans' worth of raw materials and manufactured goods of all kinds. His agents were sent to demand taxes from all the provinces of the south and east, even Kerman; from Lar he demanded 300,000 man of grain to supply his army ,° now further swelled by thousands of local conscripts. But since most of his agents, though well armed, returned from the Fars mountains and the coastal plains penni-

less and often the worse for their efforts, he set out personally to mulct the recalcitrant Banader provinces, still dragging in his wake the helpless king in whose name all this pillage was perpetrated.”” During such forays he left Ma'sum 'Ali Khan Afshar as his deputy in Shiraz, to continue the work of extortion and destruction. Even oranges and lemons, fruit drinks and wine were requisitioned for the troops and the gardens plundered for firewood--such sacrilege to the very symbols of Shiraz that Hafiz might well have writhed in his dilapidated tomb. Of the government officials and village headmen who had not fled, at least twelve were blinded in one eye during this terrible period. ©? 1.9 KARIM KHAN AS SOLE RULER IN ISFAHAN

But word was already abroad of Karim Khan's vengeful approach. His considerable army at Malayer had been further reinforced by Salim Khan Qirqlu Afshar, who hac

fled the field at Qahriz and remained in a fortress near Qazvin until throwing in his lot with the approaching Zands. With a total force of twenty thousand, ©! the Zand leader marched on Isfahan early in January 1751.°7 Hajji Baba Khan could

raise no resistance, and it was with relief that the city surrendered to the Zard leader and his brother Sadeq, whom he now appointed beglerbegi .°° Karim had already been noted for his fair treatment of the Armenians while Julfa was under kis 58. GD VI, 13 and 21 November 1750.

59. GD VI, 1 December 1750; Brieven 2679 (1752), 55-61. Evidently “Ali Mardin did not personally approach Bandar “Abbas, where his agent “Abdollah Khan had no success with his demands from the governor and the European traders. 60. See also GD VI, 4 April 1751; SP 97/35 (1751-52), 44b. 61. So Brieven 2679 (1752), 62; MI, 181, gives 30,000. Cf. GD VI, 7 December 1750, 23 January 1751.

62. GD VI, 13 January 1751. 63. TGG, 19.

30 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 authority after the city first capitulated, and again he handied them, as indeed all classes of the populace, with a consideration flagrantly lacking in ‘Ali Mardan.°*

In Fars also, 'Ali Mardan's fortune deserted him. Having raided and pillaged Kazarun early in 1751,° he was stopped on his way back to Shiraz at the Steep and narrow pass known as Kotal-e Dokhtar by an ambush of local musketeers

under Mozari' 'Ali Kheshti, headman of the village of Khesht. He lost all his booty from Kazarun and three hundred men killed or captured, and had to retreat back through the wreckage of Kazarun and take the mountain route via Fahlian to the Zarda-Kuh valleys toward Isfahan. Here at least he would expect to find reinforcements from his own tribesmen as they arrived at their spring pastures from Khuzestan. In Shiraz meanwhile Mirza Mohammad slipped away from Ma'sum ‘Ali's clutches to Maymand, to await ‘Ali Mardan's imminent collapse.°° In Isfahan, Karim was aware of 'Ali Mardan's movements, and marched that same spring to meet him on his own territory, the Zarda-Kuh foothills near the headwaters of the Karun, at the edge of the district on Isfahan's southwestern side known as Chahar

Mahall. 67

The result was predictable: many of 'Ali Mardan's followers must by now have been thoroughly disillusioned, and when the young shah, the vizier Zakareya Khan, and several other leading figures in the Bakhtyari army felt that the Zands were gaining the upper hand, they went over in a body to Karim Khan. The Bakhtyari lost heart and were routed; 'Ali Mardan and his henchmen, including Esma'il Khan Fayli the vali of Luristan, fled westward to the plains of Khuzestan to prepare for another day. A few of the captured rebel chiefs were executed or blinded, but the Bakhtyari soldiery as a whole were treated with a generosity they could hardly have expected, though it was becoming typical of the Zand khan's policy.°8 Nevertheless, Karim Khan demonstrated that he intended to be master of the Bakhtyari mountains. Immediately after his victory, tribute was demanded of ali the neighboring settlements. The Georgians of the mountain village of Akhura refused and were joined in armed resistance by several nearby Armenian villages. Karim thereupon attacked in force, massacred some of the villagers, captured and shot the Georgian leader, and left with a number of prisoners .°” 64. GD VI, 15 May 1751; Hovhanyants, 281; Malcolm, 117.

65. Brieven 2696 (1753), 20.

66. Kalantar, 44-46; Fasa'i I, 207.

67. Azar (who was in “Ali Mardan's retinue); TGG, 21; MI, 182; Bakhtyari, 477. Hovhanyants (282) gives the site of the battle as Abtk'uran--perhaps [Ab-e] Koran, a village 28 km southwest of Shahr-e Kord (see FJI X,_154 and map)--or a corruption of Ab-e Karun, i.e., the bank of the river as in Azar? Golestana gives the river as the Zayanda Rud, i.e., on the other side of the watershed, nearer to Isfahan. Rumors of this battle, "not far from Ispahaun" and its outcome--later confirmed--reached Kerman at the end of June: see GD VI, 19 June and 11 July 1751. 68. MI, 182; TGG, 21-24. 69. Hovhanyants, 282. Akhura is a town and district (bakhsh) some 25 km

west of Daran (FJI V, 5) with a majority of inhabitants of Georgian origin, whose

The Bakhtyart-Zand Regency 31 Among those blinded after the Battle of the Chahar Mahall, according to Nami, was Salim Khan Qirqlu Afshar, who had allegedly defected once more to ‘Ali Mardan Khan; but reports reaching Bandar 'Abbas would have this (and indeed it seems more

probable) the result of a political brawl in Isfahan in autumn or early winter of this year. It seems that Karim's party and a group in opposition "went to Blows at a Publick Dinner"; fifteen to twenty rebellious notables were executed and Salim Khan, who had lost one eye to Nader, forfeited the remaining one. 70 Evidently Karim was now strong enough to dispense with unreliable allies. Shiraz too was to be brought into his sphere of control by the reappointment of ‘Adel Shah's governor, Abu'l-Hasan Khan Shirazi. ‘Ali Mardan's viceroy Ma'sum "Ali Khan met the new governor outside Shiraz with all due ceremony, but brought

him into the city in chains; however, the people, led by 'Ali Kheshti, rose in revolt, released Abu'1-Hasan, and killed the last representative of their recent oppressor. Further troubles followed: the new governor was killed, order was temporarily restored by an army sent by Karim Khan, and then a new coup by Kurdish and Bayat tribesmen replaced the latest government. Al The various influential groups had grown truculent after their series of misfortunes and were not easily to be convinced of the goodwill of any potential ruler. These past twelve months were the critical ones that set Karim Khan on the road to greatness. From an obscure local brigand he had risen, by means of a risky alliance and an already apparent capacity to couple decisive action-with diplomatic clemency, to become the conqueror of most of western Iran. Now in con-

trol of both the capital and the shah, he assumed 'Ali Mardan's title of vakil oldawla, sent out fathnama circulars and appointed governors to all the territories between Azerbaijan and the Gulf ports. Karim's cousin Shaykh 'Ali Khan was appointed sardar of the northern territories centered on the Zand homeland, and Mohammad Khan of the Zagros provinces to the west. The Vakil's brother Sadeq was Sent with two thousand horse to Kermanshah, to keep watch on the still unsubdued

fortress.’

ancestors were settled here by Shah “Abbas. Other Armenian and Georgian villages named by_Hovhanyants--Khung, Sangbaran, Shahbolagh, Milagerd--are situated northeast of Akhura (FJI V, map). 70. TGG, 24; GD VI, 20 December 1751.

71. Kalantar, 46-47; Fasa‘'i I, 207-8; Mehraz, 34-35. 72. MIT, 182-83, 192-93.

2 Karim Khan as Vakil

2.1 KHUZESTAN SINCE THE DEATH OF NADER

For all the new Vakil's success in Persian Iraq, ‘Ali Mardan was still at large in his winter pastures of Khuzestan. This province, the farthest of all from Mashhad, was experiencing an anarchic autonomy for some time even before Nader's death. The rank of vali of 'Arabestan had for the previous three hundred years been hereditary in the Mosha'sha' family of Shi'ite sayyeds, who had dominated the region from Hawiza. Nader, in pursuance of his autocratic policy of destroying or undermining the powers of the hereditary provincial march wardens and replacing them With his own nominees, beglerbegis directly responsible to him, made two innovations during the 1730s. He had Dezful and Shushtar, formerly considered as belonging to the Kuhgiluya and already governed by his appointees, included in the velayat of 'Arabestan; and he appointed a new vali to rule from Hawiza, moving the dismissed Mosha'sha' sayyed Farajollah and his family south to Dawraq.

This tinkering with the traditional center of gravity only served to enable rival Arab tribes--chiefly the Al Kathir and the Banu Ka'b--to grow in influence and truculence. Coupled with the sudden onset of drought after the abundant harvests of the late 1730s, with its attendant miseries of famine, high prices, and disease, and with the continued impositions and almost total lack of central authority during the later 1740s, this contributed to a period of general hardship and disorder lasting for seven or eight years after Nader's death.1 Early in 1160/1747 Sayyed Farajollah's grandson, Mawla Mottaleb, aided by the ambitious Iranian director of finances, 'Abbas Qoli Khan, overthrew Nader's beglerbegi and regained power at Hawiza. He then defeated the combined forces of Mohammad Reza Beg, the governor of Shushtar, and Ebrahim Mirza (newly appointed to Isfahan by his brother 'Adel) and in May captured Shushtar after a two-month siege. Soon came news of Nader's death, and, among the tokens of 'Adel Shah's avowed restoration of the Safavid status quo ante, Mawla Mottaleb duly received a diploma

as vali. ‘Abbas Qoli Khan was confirmed as governor of Shushtar. But factional strife drove the Mosha'sha' chief back to Hawiza, and within a year he was defeated in the field by Shaykh Sa'd of the Al Kathir. The latter then led a popular coup ousting ‘Abbas Qoli Khan from Shushtar and Dezful and henceforth

1. Al-Shushtari, Tagkera, 102-9; Kasravi, 141-42, 149; cf. Oppenheim IV, part 1, 13, 32. For the earlier history of the Mosha°sha®, see Minorsky in El, Supplement, 160-63.

32

Karim Khan as Vaktl 33 controlled both cities from his encampment in the desert between the Karkha and Dez rivers. Skirmishing continued between, on one side, the Al Kathir shaykh and

his urban allies, and, on the other, the Mosha'sha' and the Banu Lam. Later, in 1167/1753, with the sudden reappearance of 'Abbas Qoli Khan, it was to reach the

proportions of a full-scale war. This, together with the depredations of the Ka'b, who had now moved into the former Mosha'sha' refuge of Dawraq, was consist-

ently detrimental to the agriculture of a most fertile province. Shaykh Sa'd maintained his autonomy during these early years by shrewd political as well as military means. He defeated in battle Ebrahim Shah's appointee to Shushtar, Shah Morad Beg Gunduzlu Afshar; and when, under Shahrokh, Saleh Khan Bayat at Shiraz issued a diploma reappointing Mohammad Reza Beg, the shaykh's rep-

resentatives in Shushtar and Dezful evidently had enough influence with the real regime of Persian Iraq and Fars to block this maneuver: 'Ali Mardan had Esma'il III send a more realistic ragan confirming Shaykh Sa'd as vali of 'Arabestan.” Thus, when the Bakhtyari chief arrzved in Shushtar a beaten fugitive in 1751, he was able through the intercession of the kalantar, Sayyed Farajollah (not to be confused with the former vali), to gain the hospitality and support of the Al Kathir shaykh. He managed in the course of the next year to recruit a considerable Arab contingent under the leadership of Shaykh 'Alawan, son of Shaykh Sa'd, to supplement his depleted Luri army. With this he set off through Luristan, probably in the spring of 1752, in the direction of Kermanshah,” whence Mirza Mohammad Taqi and 'Abd ol-'Ali Khan, still harried by the Zands, had sent out appeals for help both to Azad Khan in Azerbaijan and to 'Ali Mardan. 2.2 THE BATTLE OF NEHAVAND

The Bakhtyari chief was joined en route by Esma'il Khan and his Fayli Lurs. Their vanguard made friendly contact with the fortress, which was apparently not even masked by a Zand force at this time, and the base camp was Set up at Pol-e Shah, one farsakh to the east of Kermanshah on the Qara Su. Karim Khan, according to Golestana, had spent the past year in securing the whole of Fars and Persian Iraq in the name of his Safavid puppet, whom he installed at Isfahan with a royal retinue and stipend, but did not trouble with questions of administration. Remaining in Isfahan with a small garrison, the Vakil dispatched the bulk of his army under Mohammad Khan Zand to advance through Hamadan and give battle. Once past Hamadan,

2. Al-Shushtari, Tazkera, 98, 113, 163; Kasravi, 142-52; Oppenheim IV, part 1, 13, 33, 52-53. 3. Al-Shushtari, Tazkera, 114-15, 154; Kasravi, 146; MT, 192. The latter States that in the space of eighteen months he collected close on 8000 men, but unless Chahar Mahall had been fought as early as February (unlikely, as the ZardaKuh passes would still be snowbound) or the subsequent battle of Nehavand occurred in late summer or early autum (leaving very little time for the siege of Astarabad) we must assume “Ali Mardan was ready in little more than a year. For further spacussion of the chronology of the years 1165-66/1752-53, see below, notes 15 and

34 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 Mohammad Khan, with his usual impetuosity, force-marched overnight ahead of his main body with a party of seventy picked riders, and next morning launched a sur-

prise attack on the ill-prepared enemy camp. Carving his way through the pickets, he identified himself to the entrenched Khuzestan musketeers with classical bravado and called on them to surrender or be slaughtered. They were unimpressed, whereupon, his dignity offended, he charged them singlehanded. His horse was shot from under him and he broke a leg in falling; the Arabs were just rushing out to take him prisoner when a stray spark fell into one of their powder casks and blew up thirty or forty of their number in the trenches. The injured khan was carried back by his men who, all surprise lost, retreated down the Hamadan road and soon ran into the main body straggling forward in a tired, leaderless colum. ‘'Ali Mardan had by now organized a pursuit force which beat the whole dispirited rabble back through Hajjiabad, four farsakhs away, where he plundered their baggage dump, took some nine hundred prisoners, and left the rest to limp with their leader back

to Pari.“ Despite the urging of Mirza Mohammad Taqi and 'Abd o1-'Ali, the Bakhtyari

leader declined to follow up this advantage with a general pursuit. The fortress commandants were evidently anxious to play off one nuisance against another and had no wish to find themselves burdened with a fresh suitor, whereas 'Ali Mardan Wished at the least to reequip his army from their vast stocks of armaments. He took twelve cannon and, "'forty days later,'' marched against the Zand homeland to which Mohammad Khan had retreated. He was joined by a vassal of the Zands, Torab Khan of Nehavand, who, sited uncomfortably between the two armies, opted for the

one with the initiative. When battle was joined with the reorganized Zands, probably about May 1752,

the whole of the first day passed without a decision. Torab Khan, learning that Karim himself was marching from Isfahan with reinforcements, urged a night attack

to forestall this imminent junction. Three thousand volunteers stood to arms that night while Torab Khan vainly tried to rouse the Bakhtyari chief from an obstinate Slumber, until dawn announced that it was too late. During the next day's fighting ‘Ali Mardan's Arab allies and 'Abd ol-'Ali Khan especially distinguished themselves. But Karim Khan had now taken over direction of the Zand army in person. He detailed a party to mount a diversionary raid behind enemy lines on the baggage dump, and coupled this with a concerted frontal assault. 'Ali Mardan's army crunbled and gave way; 'Abd o1-'Ali Khan fled back to the fortress, Torab Khan took refuge (bast) in Karim's stable and was pardoned, and 'Ali Mardan once again fled into the mountains.» His second battle with the Zand chief had furthered his aims no better than the first. Only Mohammad Taqi and 'Abd o1-'Ali had gained a short respite for their stubborn independence. In their next attempt to rid themselves 4, MY, 192-97,

S. Ml, 197-201; al-Shushtari, Tazkera, 154ff.

Karim Khan as Vakil 35 of the equally stubborn Zands, they were to precipitate the first encounter in a confrontation that increasingly dominated the next forty years of Iran's history. 2.3 THE QAJARS

The Qajars were one of the many Turkish tribes who migrated into Iran from Central Asia in the van or the wake of one of the periodic nomad invasions, probably that of the Mongols. Their history is obscure up to the time of Timur ,° who is said to have moved a hundred thousand Turkman from Syria and dispersed them, some to Turkistan and some to the Caucasus provinces and Azerbaijan, the Qajars being among the latter. Alternately they are supposed to have been among the prisoners

released by Timur after the Battle of Ankara on the intercession of Soltan 'Ali, the son of Shaykh Safi o1-Din of Ardabil, and thus to have become one of the seven Qizilbash tribes that brought the Safavids to power. Shah 'Abbas divided them into three groups, which he commissioned to guard the marches at Ganja, Marv, and Astarabad. ’ For this last group he had rebuilt as their stronghold Qal'a Mobarakabad, a fortress of Tahmasb I on the south bank of the Gorgan River. The two branches of the Astarabad Qajars, known as the Yukhari-bash ("Upper") and Ashaghabash (''Lower'") from the position of their pastures--respectively on the upper and lower reaches of the Gorgan River--were rivals for the supreme chieftancy. This rested with the Yukhari-bash until the last Safavid, Shah Soltan Hosayn, transferred it to the Ashagha-bash chief Fath 'Ali Khan.® He became Tahmasb Mirza's principal general and mainstay in the fight against the occupying Afghans, but was murdered on Tahmasb's orders in 1726 for treachery alleged by Nader; the Qajars blamed the ambitious Nader for engineering his rival's death, though in fact Nacer may have been less anxious than Tahmasb to take this step.” With this the chieftaincy reverted to the Yukhari-bash under Zaman Beg. Feth "Ali's sons, Mohammad Hasan and Mohammad Hosayn, fled persecution to the Turkman

Steppe (Dasht-e Qipchaq), where the latter, the younger son, died not long afterwards , 19 In January 1744 Mohammad Hasan Khan returned with a force of Ashaghabash and Yomud Turkman, forcing Zaman Beg to flee the town, and ruled briefly in Astarabad before retiring once more to the steppes when Nader sent Behbud Khan

Ataki to dispossess him. A few months later the refugee Qajar chief with his Yomud allies again stirred up trouble in Khwarazm, and Nader's nephew 'Ali Qoli Khan marched with Behbud Khan against him; Mohammad Hasan engaged 'Ali Qoli in

Single combat and wounded him, but was again forced to retreat. 14 On Nader's

6. But flows none the less copiously from the pens of some Qajar historians, e.g., RSN IX, 4-9. 7. Cf. Perry, 'Forced Migration," 205-6. 8. RSN IX, 9-12; GM, 44; Mostawfi, 3; Malcolm, 125-26; Rabino, Mazandardn and Astarabad, 80.

9. Donboli, Ma'aser, 9; Mostawfi, 3; cf. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 14-16, 26. 10. Donboli, Ma'aser, 10; RSN IX, 13; Saru'i, 13a. Malcolm (127ff.), Bakik-

hanov (174) and Sykes (277) confuse the sons, making Mohammad Hosayn the survivor.

11. See Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 243-45.

36 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 death his governor in Astarabad, Mohammad Hosayn Khan of the Yukhari-bash, was deposed by Mohammad Hasan's supporters and the Ashagha-bash regained what they had

Never ceased to regard as their rights .)¢ No sooner had he returned to Astarabad than Mohammad Hasan again fell foul of his old adversary 'Ali Qoli Khan, now ‘Adel Shah, who in the winter of 1747-48 waged an inconclusive campaign against him from Ashraf, during which he took Astarabad and castrated Mohammad Hasan's four-yearold son, the future Agha Mohammad Khan.

In this way a wall of hatred and mistrust was built between the Qajar chief and the Afsharids. Despite tentative efforts by Solayman II to ensure his allegiance by the grant of a diploma, 14 Mohammad Hasan Khan renounced all further dealings with the crumbling kingdom of Khorasan and devoted himself to carving out

an empire in western Iran. To this end he consolidated his tenuous hold over Gilan and Mazandaran, traditionally a pocket of resistance to central authority in Iran and a stronghold of independent dynasties, with its forbidding forests, mountains, and coastal marshes. No details of this expansion are recorded until his conquest of Rasht in the summer of 1751. According to Nami, Hajji Jamal of Fuman, governor since 1163/1750, held out under siege until Qajar sympathizers treacherously opened the gates, but Mohammad Hasan was content to leave the governorship

in his hands for an acknowledgment of suzerainty and the hand of one of his sisters.1> The Qajar chief then proceeded to secure Qazvin and returned to Mazandaran. He may have been consolidating his hold on Qazvin the next year when he decided to march on Kermanshah, in reply to appeals for help from 'Ali Mardan and the fortress commandants . 1 2.4 KARIM KHAN'S FIRST ASTARABAD CAMPATGN

Having routed 'Ali Mardan, Karim Khan had recommenced the siege of the fortress of Kermanshah (now fortified anew and defended with increased determination) when he learned that Mohammad Hasan Khan's Qajar-Turkman army had advanced to within a

day's march of his camp. Leaving his clients the Zangana and Kalhor tribes to prosecute the siege, he marched with his main force to meet this threat, some time in the late summer of 1752. The Qajar chief, evidently surprised to find the Zands so well prepared after their recent exertions, began to retreat. Karim interpreted this as weakness and pursued, but the Qajars refused battle and retired Straight to Astarabad. The campaigning season was already well advanced, but the Vakil seems to have

12. RSN IX, 14-15. 13. TAD, 77b; GM, 44; see prologue.

14. MI, 47.

, 5. TGG, 25-26; GM, 45; RSN IX, 16; MN, 299; Rabino, Mazandaran and Astarabad, 472-73. The latter, following the chronology implied by Nami, dates this in 1165, i.e., after November 1751. However, GD VI records on 12 July 1751 that Mohammad Hasan Khan, ''Fatty Cajar's son,'' has taken Rasht and is ready to march on Karim Khan.

16. MT, 203-5.

Karim Khan as Vakil 37 been determined to make the most of the unexpected opportunity to nip a potential enemy in the bud. He followed up the Qajars, apparently without encountering any local resistance, as far as Astarabad. He immediately invested the gal'a with trenches on three sides--the fourth, abutting on the river, being unassailable. Mohammad Hasan, still reluctant to risk a battle, offered to buy off the Zand leader, according to Golestana, with a present of a hundred thoroughbred horses and the offer of his son Agha Mohammad and three hundred others as hostages. But the Vakil resolutely refused to compromise and pressed home the blockade .*7 The Qajar Khan then unleashed his reserve defenses. Over the next two months sorties from the fortress and Turkman raiders from the Gorgan Steppe regularly harassed the Zand foragers, made off with their horses from pasture and their mules at work, and generally confounded the besiegers' communications. Forced to send heavier escorts out with the grazing horses, the Zands lost both horses and men. Supplies of food and material dropped alarmingly, and winter was approaching. Finally Mohammad Hasan made a sortie from the fortress for a pitched battle, having arranged for a large force of Turkman to conceal themselves that night on one of the flanks. After the preliminary single combats and skirmishes by isolated units, the Qajars turned back in flight before a general Zand charge, and the ambush was sprung: the Turkman burst from hiding, overran the Zand trenches and baggage camp and attacked the army in the rear. Karim's force scattered in confusion, and the Vakil himself was forced to beat as orderly a retreat as he could to Tehran. This was covered by a rearguard action fought under Musa Khan Afshar, the brother of Amir Guna Khan, one of the Zand chief's most trusted generals outside his family. He left behind him over half his army dead or imprisoned; most of those

Slain--over half the total casualties--had fallen in the period before the actual battie.1® Almost as important at the time, he left in Qajar hands Shah Esma'il, his credentials as regent; for on the instigation of the vizier Zakariya Khan, that prince had surrendered to the Qajar khan and had been graciously received. Over the next few years, coins were struck in his name at Qajar-controlled Rashtl” Surprisingly, Mohammad Hasan failed to pursue and finish off his discomfited enemy; probably his Turkman allies, content with the booty and captives they already had, were too intent on transporting these back to the steppe to heed any

17. MI, 202, 205-9. 18. MY, 209-13; TGG, 28-29; Saru'ti, 13b-14b; RSN IX, 17-20. The figures given for casualties vary, and all seem exaggerated: Golestana writes that Karim lost almost the whole of his army of 45,000, and gives the number of Turkman alone who fought for Mohammad Hasan as 30,000; Sdru'i claims that out of a total of 40,000 men, the Zands lost 15,000 killed while foraging and the like during the baste days" of the siege, and a further 10,000-12,000 prisoners taken after the 19. MT, 214-15; RSN IX, 20; GD VII, 11 August 1754; Rabino, Coins, Medals and

Seals, 48; Sobhani, letter in Bar-rastha-ye Tartkhi VII, No. 1, 258.

38 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 orders for further fighting.2° Mohammad Hasan's prisoners were treated with remarkable generosity, being given the choice of service with the Qajar army or returning to their homes in western Iran. Most, we are assured by Nami, chose the latter expedient, and many of these must have been among the remnants of Karim's army that straggled back to Tehran. Here the Zands stayed for the next two months, to wait out the winter and lick their wounds .72 Mohammad Hasan's excessive forbearance in letting off his foe scot free after

such a resounding victory in their first encounter can only be attributed to his relative weakness on the departure of the Turkman. There seems to have been no serious attempt at a political compromise, and the Qajar chief must have realized that Karim Khan could not afford to rest until he had crushed such a serious threat from the Elburz. As it was, the viceroy who had lost his king now received word that 'Ali Mardan Khan had once more descended from the hilis to challenge him, and he hurried back to preserve his hegemony in the Zagros .““ 2.5 THE SIEGE OF QAL'A KERMANSHAH

Throughout this time the beleaguered fortress of Kermanshah had been holding out

stoically.*° The Zangana and Kalhor had at first driven off all the local flocks and herds, and despite daily bombardments and sorties from the fortress had energetically maintained their blockade for six months. Food in the qgal'a was rumning low, but morale remained high, and on 9 Moharram 1166/16 November 1752 came a

windfa11.7* A foraging party from the fortress was surprised, and 'Abd ol-‘Ali Khan rode out to the rescue with about two hundred men. A general skirmish ensued in which ‘Abd o1-'Ali, reinforced from the gal'a, drove the Kalhor tribesmen right 20. Cf. MIT, 215, where the Qajar chief is represented as himself dismissing the Turkman and rejecting his officers' urging to pursue on the grounds that he prefers to rest and consolidate his hold on Mazandaran; and p. 214, where he is said to have redeemed at his own expense the prisoners the Turkman were surreptitiously dragging off to the steppe. 21. MY, 214, 215; TGG, 30. 22. TGG, 30.

~.23. The following episodes, as also the battle of Kermanshah and the death 67). The author was in the fortress throughout the siege and conducted the negotiations at its capitulation, and his long and detailed chronicle of the course of this is the only one in existence--surprisingly, none of the other narrative sources, or the European records, ever mention this siege. It would obviously

of “Ali Mardan Khan, are drastically condensed from Golestadna's account (MI, 216-

have appeared a static and unimportant sideshow compared with the Astardbad cam-

paign and especially the defeat of “Ali Mardan. The fortress was, however, a key point strategically, which Karim had realized from the first. The account is not Without its intrinsic interest, as an example both of contemporary warfare and of Golestana's dramatic style and romantic cast of mind--most of which must, in the

interests of strict relevance, be omitted. 24. In Razavi's edition (MI, 218 and note 5) this date--the only one fur-

nished by Golestana throughout this period--is given as Thursday, 9 Moharram 1165 (equivalent to 28 November 1751), as corrected from 1115 in the manuscript. The year, however, must be 1166, since the incident took place at least six months after the battle of Nehavand, which on the basis of Golestana's own account could have taken place no earlier than spring 1165/1752.

Karim Khan as Vakil 39 back to the town and out of it; the whole contingent, including the blind chieftain Najaf Qoli Khan, fled the six farsakhs or more to their home town of Harunabad. The jubilant defenders fired a 350-gun salute, and the next day set about replenishing their stocks with supplies from the town and evacuating the more eminent citizens to the safety of the fortress. But a week later the townsmen abruptly ceased their welcome and attacked and expelled the evacuation party. Apparently the Zangana, who could hardly have been as vigilant as they should on the day of the skirmish, had hastened to Pari to report the setback to Mohammad Khan Zand and inculpate the Kalhor before their own role should be too closely examined; Sadeq Khan had immediately set out with a thousand men to retaliate, sending advance warning of his approach to the fickle townspeople, who reacted accordingly" Once more the fortress was besieged. Neither of the protagonists trusted the other enough to meet for negotiations. The defenders, however, feared that this stalemate would yet again bring them to the verge of starvation, and in an attempt to gain access to the town 'Abd ol-'Ali Khan sent a message to Sadeq Khan to meet him the next day in a pitched battle. The Zands accepted warily, suspecting some trick, and perhaps because they were overcautious in the ensuing action, they were

driven back by the determined onslaught of the fortress garrison, into the orchards around the town, where they lost cohesion and were scattered. Their camp was overrun and enormous booty taken, including their womenfolk. These were later handed back unharmed by ‘Abd ol-'Ali. Sadeq Khan returned to Pari in disgrace, and the furious Mohammad Khan now set out himself with ten thousand Zands to supervise the siege. “©

The defenders intensified their fortifications, setting up three mortars with a capacity of twelve Tabriz man (80 1bs.), backed by three of six man before the trench at the gate. Mohanmad Khan, wisely exploiting the guerrilla tactics typical of the Zands, sent ahead a raiding party, which ambushed the next morning's grazing detail and ran off half of the garrison's mounts. On his arrival he again called up for service the dilatory Zangana and Kalhor and issued a formal demand that the gal'a submit to Karim Khan's authority. When the demand was rejected, the blockade was tightened up over the next month. Then, early in 1753, Mohammad

Khan tried out a plan for storming the fortress: three or four thousand cavalry were concealed on three sides of the fortress and on the fourth, that facing the city, fourteen thousand men were massed behind cover of the walls. At sunset, when the garrison were likely to be fatigued and less watchful, a concerted charge was Signaled; but even though the Zand cavalry spread out to minimize the effect of the grapeshot from the gaZ'a walls, their charge was shattered by the gunners when they were a bowshot distant. Mohammad Khan then dug an elaborate system of zigzag trenches and had them heavily manned by infantry. These kept the defenders 25. MY, 216-20. 26. MT, 221-29.

40 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 under constant musketfire for the next four months, sustaining relatively few casualties thanks to well-constructed ramparts .7/ The defenders were once more faced with the prospect of slow starvation. However, two Shushtari arsenal workers managed to slip out of the gat'a by swimming along the Qara Su, which flowed past one side, and made their way to 'Ali Mardan's mountain hideout in Luristan. Since Karim Khan's recent return from Mazandaran, the Bakhtyari chieftain had been forced onto the defensive again and had not a sufficient army to help the garrison of Kermanshah, He sent back word that he would come in two months' time with help from the Pasha of Baghdad; in the meantime he sent the two men back loaded with salt and tobacco--both now at a premium in the fortress--which cheered the defenders considerably. The author of the Mojmal then himself suggested a raid in which a party of seventy horsemen charged the forward trenches and achieved complete surprise, killing many and lassoing others to take captive. But Kamar Khan, one of the most active of the Zand fighters, led a squadron from the city and counterattacked so fiercely that he drove the garrison party right back to the moat of the gal'a; so near were they that 'Abd o1-'Ali Khan dared not open the gate for fear that the Zands would follow in on his men's heels and take the fortress. He decided after anxious deliberation to fire a salvo at the melee and, mirabile dictu, though the Zands were scattered, not one of his men was hit. After these had hurried safely inside, Kamar Khan, in a fit of frustration and pique, stood glaring at the fortress walls long after his men had withdrawn, ignoring all calls to join them and exposed to enemy fire, which the commandants, impressed by his audacity, called off. Only when Mohammad Khan himself came and quietly persuaded him to return dic

the aggrieved khan desist from his vigil. 2° Mohammad Khan now had the trenches extended to cover even the Qara Su side of

the qal'a. Eight mortars were cast of sixty man (400 lbs.) each, from which a constant barrage inflicted considerable damage on the walls and interior and killed twenty-four people. The defenders now feared for the powder magazine and moved the powder from the central zone to a spot near the north gate; here it was buried in a pit, which in turn was covered with a pile of eighty thousand cannon-

balis to minimize the shock should a missile still strike it. In retaliation for the bombardment they executed another brilliant raid, this time concentrating on the mortar positions on the east side. Two hundred and fifty men dressed in white turbans of Afghan style, shouting to each other in Afghan phrases and accents, charged the mortars at night; the men in the trenches, convinced that Azad and his Afghans had arrived to raise the siege, took to their heels and allowed the 27. MY, 225-31.

28. Mf, 231-37. Kamar Khan appears as the hero of several battles: in RSN (IX, 19) he slays two Qajar champions during the battle at Astarabad described above, but is then split to the waist (kamar) by Mohammad Hasan Khan. As he evi-

the nt veds it is probable that at least part of the story was dictated by

Karim Khan as Vaktl 4h raiders to spike the dangerous mortars. Mohammad Khan punished the deserters savagely and, at this psychologically inappropriate moment, once more sent the garrison an offer of generous terms if they surrendered. Although five months had passed since he had renewed and inten-

sified the siege, they still felt confident enough to reject his terms. Nevertheless, the shortage of supplies and absence of any word of the promised help from 'Ali Mardan was disquieting. The two Shushtari swimmers slipped through the Zand lines again and covered the 250 miles to Baghdad in five days 2” ‘Ali Mardan Khan had already been there for some time, working on a new scheme he hoped would give him final victory over Karim Khan. 2.6 SHAH SOLTAN HOSAYN II

Baghdad, under the intelligent and enlightened Solayman Pasha, had become a center of refuge for Nader's victims in his later years and more recently for many whose

political affiliations made them reluctant to risk public life in the Iran of. his successors until the present chaos cleared. Among these were Mirza Mahdi Astarabadi, author of the two best-known histories of Nader (see appendix) and Mostafa Khan Bigdeli Shamlu; Nader had sent both of them as ambassadors to the sultan to ratify the peace treaty of 1746.°° News of his assassination had overtaken them at Baghdad on their way to Istanbul; Mirza Mahdi had thereupon returned to Iran, but Mostafa Khan, sending his apologies to the Porte, had elected to remain an honored guest of the pasha until he could be sure which way the wind would blow. Some time before the arrival of 'Ali Mardan and Esma'il Khan Fayli after their second defeat by the Zands, another refugee had appeared in Baghdad who gave himself out to be a son of Shah Tahmasb 11.°4 Convinced that any sons of Tahmasb had been killed either by Mahmud the Ghalji or subsequently by Nader, Mostafa Khan at first ignored him; but his claim attracted considerable attention among the populace and émigré Iranians, and the pasha himself may have espoused his cause at

least as early as June 1751.°° Perhaps the pasha took the initiative in the hope of military or political gain; but it seems more likely that Mostafa Khan 29. MT, 338-42. 30. See Lockhart, Nadtr Shah, 255-56. 31. TGG, 32; MI, 242; SP 97/33 (1751-52), 203. See 15.3, below. 32. MT, 243; Donboli, Tajreba II, 17. This pretender is also described as a reputed son of Shah Soltan Hosayn (TGG, 32)--evidently a confusion with the regnal name he adopted. Mar“ashi (82-84) maintains that Shah Tahmasb II had only two sons, of whom one died in his father's lifetime and the other, “Abbas Mirza, was at first raised to the throne by Nader on his deposing Tahmasb and subsequently killed together with his father by Mohammad Hosayn Khan Qajar (Nader's Yukharibash governor of Astarabaid). Cf. Lockhart, Safavi Dynasty, Appendix II (genea-

logical table). Genuine or not, the fact that this pretender claimed to be, and

Was generally accepted as, Tahmdsb's son is further substantiated by the English sources cited below. 33. GD VI, 12 July 1751, reports rumors that the Porte (sc. Solayman Pasha of Baghdad?) had notified the Persian leaders that he had a son of Shah Tahmasb with him and was ready to install him on the throne of Iran by force. —

42 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 immediately recognized the possibilities of such a find, that he and 'Ali Mardan were in contact even before the latter's march from Khuzestan, or at least immediately after his defeat, and that 'Ali Mardan stayed in Luristan only to raise an army While Mostafa Khan and Solayman Pasha spread propaganda and canvassed support

in Baghdad and the border regions. The pretender's story, which, according to Golestana, was accepted by the skeptical Mostafa Khan only when supported by Mohammad Reza Khan Qurchibashi, a

former officer of the Safavid court and an expert on Safavid genealogy, was in the best tradition of its kind. Only eight months old at the time of Mahmud's massacre of the Safavid princes in 1725, he and his mother had been entrusted by a loyal palace eunuch to a Georgian retainer, Mahmud Beg, who had spirited him away via Azerbaijan and Daghestan to Georgia, or (according to Golestana) via Rasht

across the Caspian to Russia. He was brought up in exile until after Nader's death, when he made his way to Baghdad to stake a claim for the vacant throne with Turkish or at least with Iranian émigré help. He found residing at Karbala a widow of Nader Shah who was a daughter of Shah Soltan Hosayn>* and convinced her of

the truth of his claim by showing her a marriage document, a seal, and a bracelet of his father's. She further recalled that her young nephew had had a deformity of the hand, a membrane between his fingers giving to the hand a "webbed" appearance--and, indeed, so had the pretender.~> Convinced or not, Mostafa Khan clearly considered the newcomer a valuable emblem under which, with the help of an army from 'Ali Mardan and the pasha, he might return to Iran as a man of some consequence.

For 'Ali Mardan this was a heaven-sent chance to settle accounts with Karim Khan, the vakil who had lost his own protégé to the Qajars. The Bakhtyari chief already had a considerable force of his own men and Esma'il Khan's Lurs, and the lure of a legitimate Safavid shah was bringing in more recruits from the border areas, By the spring of 1166/1753 they were ready: the prince was invested and acclaimed as Shah Soltan Hosayn 1,°° Mostafa Khan set about securing his own poSition as the prince's prime mentor and extracting as much military support from the pasha as he could, while 'Ali Mardan sent back the envoys from the fortress of Kermanshah with diplomas from the new shah and the news that he was on his way tc

their relief with the royal army >” _ 34. Qazvini, 73b-75b; Kuhmarra'i, 475. This lady was presumably Raziya

Bigom, whom Nader married in 1730 (see Lockhart, Nadir Shah » 42). 35. Qazvini, 73b-75b; Kuhmarra'i, 473 £.; MI, 243-47; Rostam, 197-98. ‘The

latter versions are padded with extra detail doubtless designed to lend artistic verisimilitude and probably represent the story as it reached Golestana replete with its propagandists' embellishments: the prince was taken to the Russian court and brought up by the empress, who told him his history when he reached his major1ty and reluctantly granted him leave to sail home and reclaim his crown. The Zand and Qajar historians all state or imply that he was an imposter. 56. MI, 247-49; Rabino, Coins, Seals and Medals, 45. His regnal name is

confirmed in SP 97/37 (1753-54), 15 December 1753. 37. MT, 249-50.

Karim Khan as Vakil 43 2.7 THE FALL OF QAL'A KERMANSHAH

The hard-pressed defenders of the gal'a were overjoyed at this prospect. Mohammad Khan Zand, no less aware of the rumors that could soon turn into a dangerous reality, sent word to Karim at Isfahan. The siege had now been under way for about

a year, and there were discontented elements in the garrison. One of these, an arsenal worker, conceived the idea of blowing up the fortress to gain a reward from the Zands. He laid a slow fuse to the cache of powder skins buried under the pile of cannonballs and retired to what he considered a safe distance--a tower on the side of the gaZ’a next to the Qara Su--to await results. The terrific explosion that followed blew up three towers and the walls between with all who were stationed there; it blocked the moat and hurled cannonballs into the air to rain down on the defenders all over the fortress. Dazed and panic-stricken, the garrison imagined a general assault had begun and started to fire wildly. The Zand troops in the trenches were no less surprised and alarmed; Supposing their positions had been mined, they dashed back to escape the expected assault. In the town Mohammad Khan was likewise nonplussed until the culprit him-

self, blown out of his refuge into the river by one of the secondary blasts, crawled out to report his coup and claim the expected reward. Incensed at the enormity of this crime, Mohammad Khan nearly had him hacked to pieces on the spot, but was content for the moment to have him beaten and put in irons.

Hard hit though they were, the defenders were the first to recover from the shock. Working against the declining sun, they repaired the breaches with anything they could, remanned the walls and had their musketeers stand to arms all night in case the Zands should try to take belated advantage of the disaster. But it was not until the morning that their assailants brought up two guns preparatory to storming the breaches. Accurate fire from the fortress smashed their mountings and killed the gunners almost immediately, and the garrison won a week's grace to repair the breaches and clear out the moat. Mohammad Khan resumed the blockade, soon sided by sixteen thousand reinforcements from Isfahan, but made no real progress. 38 In Baghdad, meanwhile, Solayman Pasha had probably been officially discour-

aged by the Porte from his proposed fishing in Iran's troubled waters while negotiations were still proceeding with envoys from Iran (15.3) and was reluctant to grant any military aid to Mostafa Khan and his party. But the latter was not to be put off, and his persistence elicited an escort of six or seven thousand men to accompany the shah's army as far as the frontier only. Once in Kurdistan they would be on their own. Nevertheless they set off, dispatching a plea for assistance to Azad Khan Afghan, who was an old friend of Mostafa Khan.

At this point a hitherto unsuspected factor prejudiced the whole venture: Soltan Hosayn II revealed himself in manner and action so boorish and 38. MT, 251-59, 263.

44 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 unprepossessing that Mostafa Khan and 'Ali Mardan despaired of ever passing him

off as a king.» According to Golestana, they secretly sent someone to Azerbaijan to investigate his background and learned as a result that his mother, who was Still alive, was an Armenian and his father had been an Azeri Turk. Thoroughly disillusioned, they nevertheless kept this secret for fear their army would break up. The march slowed to an indecisive crawl as they awaited the arrival of Luri and Bakhtyari reinforcements and Azad Khan's Afghans. ‘Ali Mardan and Mostafa

Khan then reportedly decided to rid themselves of this embarrassing liability by administering a slow-acting poison under the guise of a cure for the shah's 'madness'"'; however, the man charged with this task thought better of it and substituted a harmless drug. Then the tribal contingents arrived. They were denied access to the prince on pretexts that wore steadily thinner while the army meandered about the frontier hills with no clear plan. Finally disappointed with their leaders' evident incompetence, the rank and file concluded that the prince did not exist or was a charlatan, and deserted homeward in droves .79 Karim Khan was well aware of the movements of his old adversary and his allies and probably also of the lamentable state of their army. With a force given by the ever optimistic Golestana as forty-two thousand he advanced in about May of 1753 from Isfahan toward the frontier, sending ahead a last ultimatum to the fortress of Kermanshah. There was now little danger of the depleted rabble that was ‘Ali Mardan's army effecting a profitable junction with the garrison, as both Sides knew. Two years of siege had taken their toll of defenses and defenders, and after a general conference the disheartened leaders of the garrison agreed to accept the Zand chief's generous terms. Abu'l-Hasan Golestana himself was sent as their envoy: he witnessed Karim Khan confirm an oath guaranteeing their lives and property, and when the Vakil at first refused to pardon his uncle as he promised to do in the case of ‘Abd o1-‘Ali, our chronicler quoted an apposite verse that delighted the khan and procured his forgiveness. The two garrison commanders were personally received into submission by Karim. The troops respected the terms agreed and there was no violence or looting. ‘Abd o1-'Ali went to Isfahan and Mohammad Taqi remained in the town of Kermanshah. ‘Ali Mardan Khan Zand was left

to govern both town and fortress, and it must have been in a mood of considerable relief that Karim set off westward to crush what was left of the army from Baghdad. *! 2.8 THE BATTLE OF KERMANSHAH

The news of the fall of the fortress added to the confusion and loss of morale in ‘Ali Mardan's ranks. His one hope was Azad Khan, who now sent word that he and

39. MI, 260: ‘az harakat o goftoguha-ye na-mondseb . . . moshahabat-e tamni

be-ahl ol-sugq o ferqa-ye dehatian dasht ... ." 40. MI, 261-62; cf. GM, 7. 41. MYT, 262-67.

Karim Khan as Vakil 45 his Azerbaijan allies were within two days' march of them. At the same time came news that Karim Khan was only four hours away. The Bakhtyari chief and Mostafa Khan could no longer play for time; they managed to draw up some sort of battle line, including a personal guard for the young prince (in case it should occur to him to change sides during the battle) with five thousand of the pasha's troops they had persuaded or bribed to remain as "stiffeners" in the front line. Suddenly the Zand army was upon them. Shaykh 'Ali Khan led the five thousand men of his vanguard in a charge at the Baghdad musketeers and, despite a withering fire, overran them and cut them down. The rest of the neo-Safavid army simply melted away: ‘Ali Mardan fled to the hills yet again, taking his pretender with him; Mostafa Khan took off on a thoroughbred mare he had received from the pasha, but was knocked down by a Zand soldier and led a captive before Karim. The latter merrily upbraided him for his incompetence and crowned his discomfiture by having an outrider (rika) of his retinue invest the erstwhile ambassador with his distinctive cap and baton. His personal possessions and ambassadorial effects joined the general booty . 7 This action, which may conveniently be termed the Battle of Kermanshah and which must have taken place in May or June of 1753, foiled 'Ali Mardan's third and last attempt to win Iran for himself. The puppet shah was now merely a useless burden; he was therefore blinded and left to make his own way to the Shi'i

shrines of Iraq, where he lived out his life as a religious recluse." The Bakhtyari khan was to survive a hunted fugitive, doubtless still hatching further Schemes and recruiting more tribesmen, for another year; he might again, at a time when Karim was hard pressed by Azad Khan, have struck a blow at his old enemy, had

he not himself been struck down. The story of this is one of the strangest, yet one of the best authenticated, in the Zand annals and may conveniently be told here to close the file on 'Ali Mardan. 2.9 THE DEATH OF 'ALI MARDAN KHAN

After the disastrous series of defeats by Azad that were to follow the triumph of Kermanshah (3.2-3.3), the Zands split into several fragments under different 42. MI, 267-69; TGG, 33. The presents destined for the sultan had already been handed over to an Ottoman official sent to meet the envoy at Baghdad (Hatt-7t Hiimayiin, No. 15a; SP 97/35 [1751-52], 203). The precise site of the battle is not mentioned; both Bakhtyari (478-79) and Rabino (Kurdistan, 83) place it in the

plain of Bilavar (see chap. 1, note 18), but the inaccuracy of the rest of their accounts renders this suspect.

43. Al-Shushtari (fazkera, 164) confirms that this Soltan Hosayn was blinded by SAli Mardan and passed through Shushtar in 1167/1753-54 on his way to Najaf, where, according to Qazvini (76b; cf. Kuhmarra'ti, 477), he died in 1189/1774-75. His son Soltan Mohammad, Qazvini's patron, was kept in dervish attire and warned

sadly by his father against dabbling in politics. On his father's death he

visited Mashhad, where he was kindly received by Shahrokh Shah, and travelled widely in Iran; he went on the Hajj in 1205/1791, proceeded to India two years later, and ended his life as a pensioner of the Mughal emperor or the EIC.

46 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-68 khans. While Karim fled south to Shiraz with the main body in the spring of 1167/ 1754, Mohammad Khan and Shaykh 'Ali Khan stayed behind, perhaps to collect stragglers, in the Chamchamal (Chamchal) region east of Kermanshah. Here 'Ali Mardan

descended upon their little party with a force of intimidating size, but forestalled any flight or resistance with protestations of friendship and alliance. The Zands had no choice but to play along with this suspicious hospitality and were entertained that night in the Bakhtyari camp, situated in a nearby gorge. Next day 'Ali Mardan and his ever present ally Esma'il Khan Fayli spoke earnestly to their guests of the desirability of renewing the old alliance with Karim to drive out this new Afghan invader, Azad. Shaykh 'Ali Khan, "who among all the Zand tribe led the field in intelligence, shrewdness and wisdom,'"*4 pretended to have swallowed this bait and obtained leave to go himself and convince Karim of the sincerity of this proposal. When two months had elapsed, the Bakhtyari chief was naturally disabused and none too well disposed toward his captives, who evidently had no value as decoys or hostages .*> Mohammad Khan, informed of the course 'Ali Mardan's deliberations with his lieutenants was taking, was convinced that their only hope lay in a bold attempt to breakfast off their host before he could dine off them. When 'Ali Mardan next

arrived for one of their increasingly tense colloquia, the Zands put into action a prearranged plan. Mohammad Khan's jibes that the Bakhtyari khan had brought too large a retinue to butcher so small a company stung him into leaving most of his guards behind, except for four of his khans and a number of gholams. Mohammad Khan's small retinue stood respectfully behind the two leaders as they opened up their inconclusive verbal sparring. Suddenly, at a Signal from Mohammad Khan, concealed swords flashed out, the Zands seized and bound the four Bakhtyari khans and attacked and drove off the gholams, while Mohanmad Khan fell upon 'Ali Mardan with his foe's own dagger and completed the work by kneeling on his chest and saw-

ing off his head. Taking their four captives as hostages, the Zand chiefs urged on their men and womenfolk in a desperate dash for the mouth of the gorge. The Bakhtyari had fallen into confusion on learning of the death of their leader, but Esma'il Khan Fayli rallied his Lurs and rushed a body of musketeers to forestall the escapees. So fierce was the Zand charge, however, that the Lurs' ranks were scattered after they had fired only one volley, claiming only one casualty whose name, ironically, was 'Ali Mardan Khan Zand.

The Zands got clear of their prison and made their exit from the Bakhtyari hills on the western side, joining the frontier road through Zohab and Gilan-e 44, MI, 294: "tke dar jama°at-e Zandiya be-“aql o fahm o dand'i guy-e sebqat az hamaganan robuda." 45. MY, 292-94.

Karim Khan as Vakil 47 Gharb. 7° After further vicissitudes (3.6) they rejoined Karim with the welcome news that his earliest and most persistent rival was no more.

46. MT, 294-99; TGG, 44; GM, 7-8; Tabrizi, 174b. The last three agree esSentially with Golestana's more detailed account. There seems no primary evidence for the statement in MN (301) that Mohammad Khan had rebelled against or deserted Karim Khan, thrown in his lot with “Ali Mardan, then relented and killed him.

3

Azad Khan Afghan |

3.1 AZAD'S RISE TO POWER IN AZERBAIJAN

We return now to the summer of 1753 and to Azad, less than two days' march from Kermanshah, where the victorious Zands were mopping up the remnants of 'Ali Mar-

dan's last field army and counting the spoils. The seven or eight thousand Afghans and Afshars, having lost the race to reach the defeated force, stood undecided in the face of this unpleasant change of fortune. Azad's situation was precisely that of Mohamnad Hasan Khan Qajar some eighteen months before, and, like the Qajar chief, he chose discretion and commenced a prudent withdrawal to his stronghold at Urmiya.! Azad, son of Solayman, was a ghalji Afghan of Kabul who had joined Nader Shah's army probably when the city was taken in 1738. The end of Nader's career found him seconded to Amir Aslan Khan Qirqlu Afshar, commander-in-chief in Azer-

baijan; and at his superior's disastrous battle with Ebrahim Mirza (see prologue), Azad had been one of those who had helped settle the outcome by defecting to the Afsharid prince, for which he received his title of khan.* When Ebrahim was in his turn defeated at Sorkha and fled back to Qom, Azad at first remained with him but on Mir Sayyed Mohammad's refusal to readmit them to the town he wrote to the Sayyed, offering his services and those of his fifteen thousand Afghan cavalry. He was instructed to withdraw to Sava to await further instructions, since the

sayyed did not entirely trust his sincerity.” At first he had apparently complied, but instead of joining the future Shah Solayman in his journey to Mashhad, Azad preferred to try his luck at Shahrezur, on the Kurdish-Ottoman frontier,“ where at least he and his Afghans, as Sunnis, would be less exposed to popular hatred and treachery than at Mashhad. While ostensibly serving the governor Khaled Pasha, he struck up an alliance with Naqi Khan Qasemlu Afshar, whose brother Mahdi Khan was at that time beglerbegi of Azerbaijan. Azad and Naqi Khan collected a composite army round the nucleus of their own men and marched on Mahdi Khan at Tabriz. The governor enjoyed the support both of the townspeople and of the local tribal chiefs (blind Kazem 1. TGG, 64; MI, 269. 2. Azar; Donboli, Tajreba I, 491; MI, 183-84; Kuhmarra'i, 465; Olivier VI,

18. The Persian form of Azdd's tribal name varies: Ghalija, Qalicha'i, etc.; the forms Ghilzai and Ghaizai are also used, especially by western writers. 3. Mar°ashi, 100-103; TAD, 80a-82b; MT, 183-84. 4. TGG, 33-34; Kuhmarra'i, 465.

48

Azad Khan Afghan 49 Khan Qaraja-daghi, Panah Khan Javanshir, ‘Ali Khan Shaqaqi), who rallied round in large numbers; but the attackers inflicted a crushing defeat on them, during which

an alleged five thousand were killed and the rest in panic took to flight and even jumped into the ganats to save themselves. Thus in late 1750 Azad gained control of Tabriz and Urmiya, establishing Naqi Khan as beglerbegi while keeping a close eye on him and attracting into alliance other influential Afshar khans, notably Fath 'Ali Khan Arashlu, and chiefs of the mountain tribes, such as Shahbaz Khan Donboli.”

Azad was still in a rather precarious position. The fifteen thousand-strong Ghalji nucleus of his army as computed by Mar'ashi is likely an exaggeration, since there is no record of the Ghalji--Nader's archenemies in his early years-having joined his army in such large numbers .° His relatively small force was in fact isolated among those Shi'i Turkish tribes who had constituted the original Qizilbash and still retained the Safavid concept of Qtzilbashtya with all its implicit religious and national antipathy toward the Afghans. Nor did the Afshars of Urmiya admit any special relationship with Nader Shah Afshar and his supporters Nikitine's chronicler states with more than a trace of contempt that Nader Qoli was originally a Kurd of Khabushan and had assumed the lineage of a Qirqlu Afshar

to raise his status.’ The fact that Azad was already looking southward for a more secure base is demonstrated by Golestana's report that Azad opened the correspondence with Mirza Mohammad Taqi and 'Abd o1-'Ali Khan at Kermanshah, proposing an alliance to unite

Iran. Their cautious and dilatory reply convince him that for the moment his efforts in that direction were wasted.® A direct threat soon revealed itself in the Georgian king Taymoraz (Tamaris) and his warrior son Erekle (Irakli, Heraclius), who shortly after Nader's death embarked on a policy of aggressive expansion toward the south (13.3). This was actually a sound defensive strategy, as a contemporary observer asserts, in view of the anarchy prevailing south of the Aras, which threatened the Christian states of Transaraxia with pillage and massacre. Erekle made forays as far as Tabriz, where many if not all of the Afghans joined him voluntarily, and Azad judged it expedient to make his submission. According to Olivier, it was this corps of Afghans that aided Erekle to reduce Erivan 2° 5. Donboli, Tajreba I, 491-92; Nikitine, "Les Af$ars,' 77, 106; TGG, 33-34; MI, 184-85; Butkov I, 238; 1II, 88. 6. Cf. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 120; Quzanlu II, 676. Olivier (VI, 17) has 10,000. Apparently Azad also had an Uzbek contingent; see below, note 24.

7. Nikitine, "Les AfSars," 88. Kopriilii ("Afshars,"' EI, I, 240) states,

however, that Nader came from the Qirqlu Afshars of Abivard in Khorasan. >. mae Povee Vit, No. 81 {''plustost pour deffendre son pays que pour faire

des conquestes"): a report from a Swedish officer included in a report of the Comte Desalleurs, ambassador at Istanbul, dated 1 February 1753.

10. Olivier VI, 17.

50 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 But early in 1751 Azad laid siege to Erivan on his own account, and Erekle, alarmed at the growing power of his Afghan vassals, rallied to the Armenians' aid and repulsed Azad with great slaughter 21 According to Golestana, Azad had at-~ tacked after Taymoraz had rejected his proposals for a marriage alliance.!* Erekle went on to reduce Tabriz itself, where he left a garrison. However, a coalition of the eastern Transaraxian khanates threatened his rear and forced him to retire; further incursions from this quarter finally drove Erekle back to Tiflis at the end of 1751..° Azad used this vicarious success to clinch the alliance of equals previously rejected, by taking a sister of Erekle in marriage. He was able to reestablish his power in Urmiya and, in January 1752, in Tabriz.14 The following year saw the apogee of Azad's power in Azerbaijan, his jurisdiction extending over Cisaraxia from Ardabil to Urmiya and thrusting across the Aras to embrace the province of Nakhchevan. ?°

Menaced also by the growing power of the khan of Sheki and his Lezgin allies, the Georgian monarchs organized a coalition with the khans of Qarabagh, Shusha, and Erivan, which, however, collapsed at the first onslaught from Sheki. Erekle and his Circassian guard nevertheless routed the invaders near Tiflis on 31 August 1752 and pursued them eastward with considerable slaughter. / Azad, stripped of the Lezgin umbrella under cover of which he had been pushing northward, was forced

to sue for terms, by which he agreed to stay south of the Aras 17 It seems likely that this setback, added to his equivocal relationship with the Afshars and other tribes of Azerbaijan, prompted Azad in spring of 1753 to seek his fortune some three hundred miles to the south, where Karim Khan's prolonged grappling with 'Ali Mardan and his allies seemed ripe for exploitation. 3.2 THE FALL OF PARI AND ISFAHAN

Having in the event mistimed his entrance, Azad had lost the initiative. Karim Khan roused his army to pursue the retreating Afghans, and Azad, at the urging of his Azerbaijani allies, made camp a few days later and sent envoys to negotiate a peaceful disengagement. But the Vakil, rejecting excuses that they simply wished to dissociate themselves from 'Ali Mardan now they knew his pretender to have beer an imposter, demanded nothing less than Azad's personal submission and tribute. Such humiliation was more than the Afghan-Afshar alliance was prepared to stomach, and Azad prepared to make a stand. +8 Even before battle was joined, Karim had struck unexpected opposition among

11. Peyssonnel part 11, 119-24; Brosset, 156, 163; Butkov I, 238; III, 88.

12. MY, 186-87.

13. Peyssonnel part i1, 125-33; Olivier VI, 18-19. 14, Olivier VI, 18-19; MT, 187-88. 15. MAE Perse VII, No. 81; Olivier VI, 35. 16. Olivier VI, 35; Bakikhanov, 161; cf. 13.3. 17. Peyssonnel part ii, 143-52; Brosset, 175-77, 212-14. 18, MT, 270-72.

Azad Khan Afghan Sl his own khans. Mohammad and Shaykh 'Ali, no doubt recalling with foreboding the sorry debacle of Astarabad, which had been the result of just such a rash pursuit of the Qajars the year before, pointed out that they had no quarrel with Azad and urged Karim to allow him to withdraw. Another cause of resentment, according to Nami, was Karim's preferential treatment of his jazayerchi and tofangcht infantry, on whom he had relied heavily in his recent pitched battles and whom, as levies from the peasantry or from tribes other than the Zand, he was obliged to pamper to

ensure their loyalty.?° The disgruntled Zand cavalry leaders, if not openly rebellious, at least refused to coordinate their efforts in the ensuing battle. Shaykh 'Ali Khan and Mohammad Khan both allowed their forces to disintegrate and prematurely deserted their posts, while the usually impetuous Eskander Khan re-

fused to go to Shaykh 'Ali's help until the latter had entirely withdrawn from the front. Finally the Zands were outflanked by a squadron under Salim Khan Baban,

Azad's Kurdish ally, which fell upon their disorganized baggage train. In short, complete tactical confusion resulted in an ignominious rout: an hour before sunset, the field was Azad's .2° The Zand leaders fled back to their fortress of Pari, which Shaykh ‘Ali and Mohammad Khan were left to defend while Karim, Sadeq, and Eskander Khan returned

to Isfahan to prepare the defenses of the capital. News of the defeat had preceded them and precipitated a general insurrection of discontented elements, which, however, was put down by a brisk show of force and some summary executions. Nevertheless, the Vakil judged the situation unfavorable for levying troops and

attempting to defend the city and, after only a few days, left for Shiraz.7In the space of a few hours the entire Zand empire had been brought to the verge of collapse by shortsighted jealousies. Azad was not slow to exploit this. He pursued the Zand army back to their base camp, whence Mirza Mohammad Taqi and

"Abd o1-'Ali Khan, Karim's hostages, sent word that they had not accompanied the Zand leaders in their flight eastward; Azad detached fifty men to escort ‘Abd ol‘Ali to himself and Mohammad Taqi to Kermanshah and set off immediately to reduce the Zand stronghold of Pari. 2? Here his demands were rejected, and after a few days of profitless siege and

skirmishing he determined to try trickery. He sent as envoy his astute and glibtongued gazt-'askar ‘Omar, who somehow persuaded the two Zand khans to come out

for friendly talks with Azad before he retired, as he intended, to Azerbaijan. Perhaps he pointed out that, with the loss of Isfahan, Karim's luck had finally run out, and they would in any case be unsure of their standing with their leader after their misconduct in the recent battle. Once face to face with Azad, they were disarmed and manacled together with fifteen others of Karim's family who were 19. TGG, 35. 20. TGG, 35-36; MI, 272-73; Tabrizi, 173b. 21. TGG, 36-37; Hovhanyants, 286. 22. MI, 273-74.

52 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 in the fortress: these included Karim's mother and other Zand women, and with the treasure and other stores of Qal'a Pari, constituted an enormous material and psychological gain for the Afghan leader. Prisoners and booty were dispatched with an escort seven hundred strong under Azad's cousin 'Alam Khan Afghan toward Urmiya, while Azad marched on undefended Isfahan.7°

Isfahan fell without resistance in September or early October. Azad wintered there, stabling his horses in the Augustinian church and holding court in the Chehel Sotun. He imposed a levy of 60,000 tumans on the city, 8,000 of which was demanded from Julfa immediately. In the words of the Armenian chronicler, ''the tax-collectors fell upon the . . . unprotected Christians as a fire blown through the reeds; they . . . tied up men and women in the streets, in the squares, demanding money.'' Moreover, the Uzbek contingent was quartered on Julfa, which for the second time in three years was reduced to abject poverty. Numerous people Were executed, tortured, beaten, or taken captive. “* Anxious to build up supplies for a final spring offensive against Karim Khan, Azad sent out detachments to requisition more from the surrounding districts. The Armenian villages of the Peria region successfully resisted.?> When Qomishah, a fertile and prosperous town with a strong fortress, refused his demands, it was stormed by the Afshars of Fath 'Ali Khan and given over to carnage, rape, and looting. ® 3.3 THE BATTLE OF QOMESHAH

Azad was to meet Karim Khan sooner than he anticipated. When the Vakil arrived outside Shiraz, Hashem Khan Bayat, who had risen to be governor by virtue of a coup d'état (1.8) and had not been confirmed in office by Karim, shut the city gates in his face. “! With too few men to force an entry, the Zand leader was forced to turn about. He gained a few local reinforcements and with the few thousand he now had, marched north to challenge Azad. At ravaged Qomeshah he was weicomed by the townsfolk, who felt they had nothing more to lose by a last stand against the Afghans. 7° Karim sent the women to the safety of the hills and, with

the qat'a as his base, mounted a series of hit-and-run raids against Azad's foragers and communications over a period of some two winter months .2° Azad's delay

in following up and finishing off his severely weakened rival can perhaps be 23. TGG, 37; MI, 274-77; Hovhanyants, 282. Golestana would have Karim's

flight from Isfahan the result of the fall of Pari, rather than the popular antip-

athy reported by Nami. 24. Carmelites, 685; Hovhanyants, 286; Rostam, 263. Al-Shushtari (see

Tazkera, ix-xi) tells of one of these prisoners, a Christian priest; the author

himself ransomed him and took him home, where he read the New Testament with him. 25. Hovhanyants, 286. 26. Rostam, 262.

27. Kalantar, 48. 28. TGG, 38. 29. MT, 287.

Azad Khan Afghan 53 attributed to news that Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar had already taken advantage of

his absence to raid his northern territories .~” However, he finally sent Fath "Ali Khan with a force of eight thousand to exterminate this wasp's nest at Qomeshah.

Against him Karim could barely muster three thousand, many of them ill-armed townsmen. But the two hundred Zand horse, led by Karim's young haif-brother Es-

kandar Khan, staved off the Afshar's cavalry so well that he had to call for masSive reinforcements from Azad.>! Seeing the hopelessness of their position, Eskandar Khan proposed to attempt to assassinate Azad, who had now arrived in person, before battle was joined. Karim reluctantly assented, and Eskandar straight away galloped head down into the ranks of the Afghans. Thinking at first he had come to ask for quarter, they parted to let him through. He spitted a distinguishedlooking Afghan officer on his lance and whirled round, an easy target for the enemy musketeers as they snapped out of their astonishment; he died at Karim's feet as he reported possible success. But he had killed the wrong man, and nothing could now stop the Afghan advance. Greatly moved by his half-brother's wasted sacrifice, the Zand leader nevertheless made an organized withdrawal southwestward, through Gandoman into the Kuhgilu mountains .~7

Despite Azad's misgivings about risking his men in the Bakhtyari mountains, Fath 'Ali Khan Afshar and Shahrokh Khan Afghan took a party in pursuit of the Zands, but determined rearguard defense by Karim himself saved the fugitives. He felled Shahrokh Khan in single combat, and Fath 'Ali retired to Isfahan after venting his frustration on the persons and property of the populace of Gandoman >”

Karim spent the rest of that winter in the Bakhtyari and Luri hills, attempting to recoup what he could of the failing Zand fortunes by recruiting tribal support. His headquarters came to be Khorramabad, the center of the Fayli Lurs, who Were generous with their hospitality and support.” Azad remained entrenched in Isfahan and took no action until after an event that was greatly to raise the morale of the Zands.

30. Hovhanyants, 287. _ 31. MT, 287-88; Rostam, 250. The latter gives Azad's total force as 30,000

men, Golestana as 40,000, both of which seem exaggerated.

32. MI, 288-89; TGG, 39. Nami's version of Eskandar Khan's death differs somewhat from that of Golestana: according to him, Eskandar died fighting a forlorn rearguard action when the Zands were already in retreat, shot by an Afghan sniper from behind a rock. 33. MI, 289-92. Golestana places the battle of Qomeshah and the retreat described here after the conflicts with Azad's forces in Luristan, thus reversing the order of events in Nami. The Gombroon Diary is not very helpful for this period, and no other contemporary source gives sufficient confirmation of the sequence of events. I have preferred Nami's version in outline, retaining Golestana's detail in summary--bearing in mind that some of his tales of the guerrilla actions and single combats seem suspiciously alike. 34. TGG, 40.

24 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 3.4 THE ESCAPE OF THE ZAND PRISONERS AND THE BATTLE OF DO-AB

The seventeen Zand khans and their fifty or so women and children captured at Pari were for Azad, together with the easy reduction of Isfahan and district, a guarantee of his success. With the removal of such pillars of the tribe as Mohammad Khan and Shaykh ‘Ali Khan,>> Azad may well have been tempted to assume, as Nader

had before him, that this deportation of the leading khans spelled the end of the zands aS a power in the Zagros. The prisoners were kept bound and heavily guarded as they made their way toward Urmiya. At the fourth day's camp~° Mohammad and Shaykh ‘Ali managed to con-

fer in secret and resolved to stake all on a mass escape bid. Taking advantage of their guards' siesta, they somehow slipped their bonds, stealthily released the other prisoners, and passed the word to their women. Then Shokr ‘Ali and Safar "Ali Khan burst in upon ‘Alam Khan and slew him with a pistol and a sword they had kept hidden. They raised a cry that Karim Khan and his army had arrived, and in the ensuing uproar the bemused guards were attacked with their own spears and swords, with tent poles and with anything else that came to hand by the desperate Zands and their womenfolk. Seventy mules were taken from the baggage guards and before the Afghans could recover from their surprise the prisoners were riding to freedom.”’

Avoiding Pari, still presumably occupied by Azad's men, the little party made its way south to Borujerd. On the way they fell in with large numbers of Kurds and Fayli Lurs who were marching to enlist under Karim Khan against this new Afghan occupation. The Zand chief was apparently at Khorramabad when he learned to his joy of the escape and met his kinsmen at Borujerd. This exploit undoubtedly had a favorable effect on the tribes still hesitating to join the Zand army, encouraging not only Kurds and Lurs but Qaraguzlu and Khodabandalu from the plains to swell Karim's ranks .~® Azad sent a force under ‘Abdollah Khan Afghan to strike at Khorramabad, but the Zand army marched to meet him and repulsed this attack at Borujerd. Neverthe-

less, that winter had to be spent in hiding and continued recruiting, during which the Zands and their allies suffered greatly from the severe weather .>” In the spring of 1167/1754 Azad sent his reequipped and well-supplied army under Fath

35. Golestana (MI, 279) also gives Sadeq Khan as one of the prisoners, stating that he escaped identification by pretending to be Mohammad Khan's servant and procured a piece of bone which Mohammad Khan used to saw through his bonds. But Nami (TGG, 37) states that Sadeq accompanied Karim on the flight to Isfahan after

the first battle with Azad.

36. Named by Golestana (279} as Zaghach; perhaps this is Zagha-Anuj, some 60 km west of Pari (see FJI V, 210 and map). 37. MI, 279-83; Rostam, 261. TGG (40) has a shorter and slightly different account, in which the Zand women free their menfolk. The women also play a major role in Rostam's version, which adds further gems of detail, e.g., that ‘Alam Khan was killed as he emerged from the latrine. 38. MT, 283. 39, TGG, 41-42.

Azad Khan Afghan 35 'Ali Khan to confront them. Still unable to concentrate a force, Karim fell back farther into the hills. At Do-Ab in the Silakhur region,” not far from Borujerd, the last of his allies had excused themselves and slipped away home, and the Vakil with a nucleus of Zands fought a holding action to allow the women and baggage to escape. Kamar Khan met his end here when, with characteristic bravado, he charged

into the field to engage in single combat: he collided full-tilt with the first Afghan challenger, both horses crashed to the ground leaving the riders stunned or dead, and another Afghan rode up and cut off Kamar Khan's head. A Zand rider treated the fallen Afghan in like manner, but this was small compensation for the loss of such a champion so soon after Eskandar Khan. Karim now took the field himself and allegedly slew four Afghan champions in succession before the exasperated Fath 'Ali Khan ordered a general assault. Again the Zands beat a fighting retreat to Chamchamal, their antagonists preferring to secure the enormous booty of livestock rather than press a pursuit. “4 Fath 'Ali Khan returned three days later to Isfahan. Mohammad Khan and Shaykh ‘Ali Khan Zand and their party became separated from the main body at Chanchamal, where they were taken to the enforced hospitality of 'Ali Mardan's camp and, some time in the summer of this same year, assassinated him (2.9). 3.5 THE DESTRUCTION OF QAL'A KERMANSHAH

Not content with two incredible escapes from captivity, these two Zand khans next made preparations to harass Azad. Having fled westward onto the frontier road to Zohab, they contacted local Vand, Zangana, and Kalhor tribesmen, and by the time they arrived in the vicinity of Zohab they had an army of some ten thousand men. ‘Abdollah Khan, the Baghdad-appointed pasha of Zohab, demanded tribute from this horde. When Mohammad Khan indignantly refused, the pasha levied reinforcements from the Jaf and from his own tribe the Bajlan to back up his demands. At the same time the Zands were further reinforced by about six thousand families of Shaqaqi Kurds who had recently returned from Khorasan, where they had doubtless been transported by Nader; they had at first contemplated joining forces with Azad at Isfahan, but, apparently disappointed by his conduct, had left the capital on the pretext of making a pilgrimage and were now happy to throw in their lot with Karim's successful deputies. However, the confrontation with 'Abdollah Pasha seems to have fallen short of actual battle, probably owing to disunity in the ranks of Mohammad Khan's motley force. He was at loggerheads with Karam Khan Vand, whose arrogance and insolence provoked him finally into having him and his

uncle trussed up, laid on their sides like sheep, and decapitated. This undoubtedly alienated many of his Vand and Kalhor allies and probably induced Mohammad

40. Do-Ab lies c. 75 km southeast of Borujerd: see Dehgan, 73; FJI II, 116 and map (Arak). The Silakhur district is shown in Kayhan II, 466 (map). 41. TGG, 42-44; MI, 284-86. The latter implies that Azad Khan personally led this army, not Fath “Ali as in Nami.

56 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 Khan to retire the following month with his remaining force, still of considerable proportions, on Kermanshah. 42

It will be remembered that after Karim's initial defeat by Azad, his hostages "Abd o1-'Ali and Mohammad Taqi of the Kermanshah gal'a had been escorted from the captured Zand base camp, the former to accompany Azad and the latter to return and

administer Kermanshah for the Afghans. Those local tribes who had been allied with the Zand force against the fortress, against 'Ali Mardan and lately against Azad, notably the Zangana under Haydar Khan, had melted quietly back into the frontier mountains. Now, almost a year later, Haydar Khan was informed of Mohammad Khan's escape from the clutches of 'Ali Mardan and of his intention to recruit

an army in that area. He thereupon set about preparing the ground by wresting Kermanshah from its enforced allegiance to Azad, which as a strategic move on behalf of the Zands he could combine with a personal vendetta against Mirza Mohammad Taqi for his connivance with Mortaza Qoli Khan Afshar and Mehr 'Ali Khan Tekelu in the blinding of his kinsman Emam Qoli Khan Zangana (1.2). To bring the district under control, Azad had supplied the Mirza with a gar-

rison of five thousand cavalry, which had made itself detested by its ceaseless requisitions and seizure of hostages from the Zangana, Kalhor, and Vand. Haydar Khan found no difficulty in collecting a horde of twenty five thousand Lak tribesmen and surrounding the town, especially since Mohammad Taqi at first imagined the approaching army to be that of the Zands, from whom he could expect some measure of sympathy. He now had no option but to join Haydar Khan in a general evacuation

to the frontier with the object of denying Azad a base in the area. Most of the populace was sent away to the hills, to Zohab and even to Baghdad; many of the buildings and defenses were demolished and the roads blocked, and the Zangana force with its reluctant companion set off in the wake of the refugees to join Mohammad Khan at the frontier.” Abu'l-Hasan, our chronicler, was justifiably suspicious of Haydar Khan's motives and took the first chance he could to slip away to Baghdad; his uncle would not--or could not--accompany him. As soon as the Zangana chief had contacted Mohammad Khan he summoned Mirza Mohammad Taqi to his tent (according to Golestana,

on the Zand khan's instigation) and had him shot. His belongings were looted but his brothers, who were also in the camp, managed to escape over the border. ‘'Abdollah Pasha, still keeping a watchful eye on the Zand army, reported these events to Baghdad, and was ordered to prevent any pursuit of the Golestana fugitives and to prepare a punitive expedition against the Zands and Zangana. But Mohammad Khan was already at Kermanshah, where for three days he completed the destruction begun by Haydar Khan: he evicted any of the citizenry who still clung to their 42. MT, 300-302.

, 43. MI, 300.

44. MY, 304-11. 45. MI, 311-14.

Azad Khan Afghan ) 57 homes, demolished any towers of the gal'a yet standing and broke up and cast into the Qara Su the few remaining cannon from what had been the largest concentration of ordnance in western Iran. This done, powder trains were led from the remnants of the magazine back to the town, and the whole fortress blown sky high.” So ended Nader Shah's westernmost bastion and the chief bone of contention in the Zagros over the past seven years. 3.6 FURTHER EXPLOITS OF MOHAMMAD KHAN ZAND

During this time, while he was based on the Kermanshah border region, Mohamnad Khan remained a direct threat to Azad's commmications with Urmiya (in which he himself had been an unwilling consignment) and seems to have taken full advantage of the fact. In August 1754 Nasir Khan Lari received the news from Karim Khan that Mohammad Khan and his fellow escapees had not only made an end of ‘Ali Mardan, but had subsequently defeated Salim Pasha Baban, Azad's Kurdish ally, near

Hamadan. *? In January next it was learned from Isfahan that Azad had sent a large sum from the wealth he had extorted under escort of Shahbaz Khan Donboli to Urmiya; like the convoy of Zand prisoners, it never reached its destination, for Mohammad Khan intercepted, routed, and robbed the escort. /° Doubtless other such raids from the mountains contributed to Azad's insecurity at Isfahan and made his invasion of Fars in August 1754 not so much an advance as a retreat--from famine and isolation in Isfahan and from Mohammad Khan's guerrilla band gnawing at his lifeline to Azerbaijan. Valashgard fortress, the old Tekelu stronghold near Hamadan, was Mohammad

Khan's last target. It was now the winter of 1168/1754-55, and the brothers of Mehr 'Ali--'Abd 01-Ghaffar Aqasi Soltan and ‘Abd ol-Jabbar Soltan--doubtless relied on the extreme cold to discourage the Zands from a lengthy siege. Mohammad

Khan was no less alive to this, but his answer was to build ladders, fill in the moat with straw and hurdles, and launch a furious assault on the walls which, despite heavy casualties, carried the day. The garrison was massacred and the gat'a, another long-term thorn in the Zand flesh, razed to the ground. Having thus cleared northwestern Iran of Azad's collaborators, Mohammad Khan marched to Khuzestan, where he amassed further plunder before joining Karim's army in Fars hid 3.7 THE BATTLE OF KAMAREJ AND THE FALL OF SHIRAZ

For the past year Karim Khan, denied entry to Shiraz, had been attempting to recruit a fresh army in the Garmsir before Azad could make himself in theory master of the whole length of the Zagros axis from the Caucasus to the Gulf by marching into Shiraz. In this the Vakil failed, for Azad marched on Shiraz in August 1754.

46. MI, 302.

47. GDVII, 4 September 1754. 48. GDVII, 26 January 1755. 49. MI, 303.

58 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-638 He met resistance in the neighborhood of Persepolis from some two thousand men of the Lashani, Mal-e Ahmadlu, and Korbal tribes under the leadership of 'Abd olMottaleb Korbali; but they were enticed out of their fortress and heavily defeated on the Marvdasht Plain, whence 'Abd ol-Mottaleb fled to join Karim Khan. The Afghans allegedly massacred four thousand people in their now poorly defended strong-

ho1d.” Little further resistance was offered, and the Afghan army, twelve thouSand strong by some estimates, occupied Shiraz.>! Karim, who had shortly before been recruiting additions to his force of two thousand in the Dashtestan, then set up his headquarters in Kazarun, where he enjoyed local support, and summoned Nasir Khan of Lar to his assistance. Nasir Khan had long retained his independence by judicious diplomacy and the impregnability of his’ mountain stronghold and remained on friendly terms with the East India Company's agent at Gombroon, to whom he sent bulletins of the latest news as well as constant requests for powder and ammmition. He was now being courted by Azad, who had sent him a raqam of confirmation in his governorship, and bullied by Karim Khan, who considered him his own vassal. Nasir Khan, while keeping a wary eye on both, was not yet ready to commit himself. He sent presents to Azad in acknowledgment of the diploma, but kept an army of fourteen thousand, including many Arabs from the Gulf littoral, standing by to oppose him if he should advance into Larestan.>¢

But Azad's next move, predictably, was against Karim's base of Kazarum. In September the small Zand army and its allies--the townsmen under ‘Ali Qoli Khan Kazaruni and the levies from the Dashtestan--were forced to evacuate the town and retire westward to the village of Khesht, not far from the pass of Kamarej. A further four thousand musketeers under their chiefs Mirza 'Ali Beg Khurmuji and Ratis Ahmad Shah Tangestani joined him here, and all were unstintingly aided and supplied by the village headman, Rostam Soltan.>° About the middle of September Fath ‘Ali Khan, with the bulk of Azad's army, marched into Kazarun, massacred the remaining inhabitants for having sheltered the Zands, and generally crushed any revival the town might have enjoyed since 'Ali Mardan's similar visit three years before.”* Then he moved on Khesht. Karim Khan's situation had never been quite so desperate, even after the fall of Pari and Isfahan. He had run then to fight another day, but the days had marked only defeats or, at the most, rearguard actions to allow him to mm farther. Mohammad Khan's exploits, of which news had recently reached him, were the only source of hope; but Mohammad Khan's army was still somewhere between

50. Kalantar, 48-49; Fasa'i I, 209; GD VII, 22 August, 4 September 1754. 51. GD VII, 9 September 1754. The Kalantar (p. 49) has 30,000, which Fasa'i has changed to 3000--neither very realistic figures. 52. GD VII, 4 and 9 September 1754. 53. Kalantar, 49; Fasa'i I, 209; Rostam, 261; GD VII, 12 October 1754. 54. GD VII, 18 and 24 September 1754.

Azad Khan Afghan 59 Kermanshah and Fars, while Karim's little force was holding a gorge that was his last foothold on the Iranian plateau. If Kamarej fell, Azad would drive him, as Karim had driven 'Ali Mardan, into a life of guerrilla raiding from the plains of Khuzestan and the western slopes of the Zagros, with little hope of a return in

sufficient force to retake his lost capital. Nasir Khan had ignored his sumons and stayed to watch over his own interests in Lar; the inhabitants of the Dashtestan and the shaykh of Bandar Rig were more concerned with fortifying that port than augmenting the Zand field army, and most of the port merchants had snatched

up their effects and pushed off to the safety of Kharg, the nearest island.” Little wonder in such a situation that the Zand chief fell prey to the despondency described by Malcolm and even considered withdrawing from his long struggle for power and joining the still growing numbers of Safavid refugees in India while he yet could. But his immediate allies, especially Rostam Soltan, stood resolutely by him, and a plan was evolved to stop the enemy in the Kamarej defile. This was about two miles long, in parts wide enough for single file only, and flanked by steep hills of loose shale and stones. Rostam Soltan and the musketeers of Khesht positioned themselves atop the hills along the defile, while the Zand cavalry and the Dashtestani musketeers formed a battle line down on the plain into Which the gorge debouched. Fath 'Ali Khan marched straight into the trap: caught in the crossfire of the ambuscade, his troops piled up in confusion as those in front made to retreat and those at the rear rushed forward to help. Those who escaped from this deadly bottleneck into the plain were cut down by Karim's men. The Khesht headman's plan, identical with that of his predecessor 'Ali, who had caught 'Ali Mardan at the Kotal-e Dokhtar, had completely turned the tables on Fath 'Ali Khan and his Afghan master; their army was pursued through Kazarun right to Shiraz, which Azad had to evacuate ten days after the battle.”° The popular pressure that battened on news of Kamarej to force out the hated Afghans brought back to power Saleh Khan Bayat, who was no more disposed to allow the Zand chief into Shiraz than his kinsman Hashem had been. Karim and his Zand, Mamassani, Kazaruni, and Kheshti troops (the Dashtestanis had already dispersed to

their homes) arrived outside the city soon after the battle, in October or Novem-

ber, and tried first to negotiate an entry. Having failed this, they besieged tie town in a race to secure it before Azad should recover and return in force. Certain men of the saheb-ekhteyar's faction, tired both of the Afghans and of Saleh Khan, slipped out secretly to Karim Khan's headquarters at the Hafeziya, where Mirza Mohammad had already joined him under pledge of safe conduct, and offered to

55. Ibid.

56. TGG, 44-45; MT, 315; Kalantar, 49; Fasa'i I, 209; GD VII, 25, 29, 30

October, 8 and 9 November, 7 December 1754; Brteven 2756 (1753), 18; Malcolm, 123-

25; cf£, FJI VIII, 188. Malcolm was shown over the site of the battle in 1800 by

the grandson of Rostam Soltan. Kuhmarra'i (466) gives the headman of Khesht here

as Mohammad SAli. Binning (I, 174) notes that the steepest part of the Kotal-e Kamarej was still known as the Kamar-e Azad Khan at the time of writing (1850s).

60 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 betray Shiraz into his hands. The Bayat and Lashani: tribesmen of the citadel garrison, led by the commander Hadi Khan Lashani, arranged to let in the Zands by the Isfahan gate and hand over the citadel, and on 13 Safar 1168/29 November 1754 this was done. Saleh Khan was clubbed to death by Shaykh 'Ali Khan at the shrine of Mir Hamza, near the Isfahan gate, and his body thrown on the refuse dump for the dogs.>” Just over a year after being driven from Isfahan, Karim Khan first en-

tered his future capital of Shiraz. 3.8 RECOVERY OF ISFAHAN

The winter of 1754-55 found Karim Khan in somewhat precarious control of Shiraz,

with hostile factions and a fickle populace within, the as yet uncommitted forces of Nasir Khan Lari behind him, and Azad Khan in front, recuperating at Isfahan. Karim resolved first to secure his rear: as soon as the campaigning season opened, he took charge himself of an expedition against Lar (7.8). Azad's position was hardly more secure. He was even less welcome to the people of Persian Iraq than was Karim Khan to the Farsis: events were soon to demonstrate this disaffection at Isfahan, Qazvin, and Tabriz. At the same time, Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar, having for the moment patched up a running feud with Hosayn Khan Develu Qajar, the Yukhari-bash governor of Astarabad, was at Ashraf with an army and "Shah" Esma‘il,

already threatening Azad's rear--at least until his own rear was in turn menaced by Ahmad Shah Dorrani's advance to Nishapur toward the end of June 1755 (see prologue), whereupon he pulled back to Astarabad.?® To complete this all-round pressure, a Zand force under Mohammad Khan continued to dispute Azad's hold on Hamadan,

defeating his lieutenant Fath 'Ali Khan Afshar in the spring.>> Information on developments in western and northern Iran during this year is Sparse and vague in both Persian and European sources. Indications are that this front remained static, each of the protagonists being primarily concerned to protect and extend his own recently acquired sphere of influence. In September the Qajar khan, having defeated an advance column of Dorrani troops and contributed to Ahmad Shah's retreat from Khorasan, with an army augmented by Kurdish refugees

from the erstwhile invaders ,°° was at last free to reassert his authority in the Caspian provinces. Ashraf, Farahabad, and Sari paid homage, but the Zandappointed beglerbegi, Sabz 'Ali Khan of the Yukhari-bash Qajars, resisted from his fortress near Sari. Mohammad Hasan sent Moqim Khan Saru'i, the hakem of Sari, and Mohammad Vali Khan Qajar to Amol to win over the local populace and subdue the rebel by negotiation or force. Unfortunately, Mohammad Vali Khan proved so oppressive and unpopular as to provoke a general insurrection of townsfolk and hill people. He was deposed and imprisoned and Moqim Khan, unable or unwilling to

o7. Kalantar, 49-52; TGG, 45-46; Fasa'i I, 209-10. 98. Butkov I, 410-13; cf. TGG, 49. 59. Butkov I, 412; GD VII, 13 and 15 April; VIII, 31 August 1755. 60. Butkov I, 411, 415.

Azad Khan Afghan 61 justify himself before his overlord, made common cause with the mutineers and barricaded himself in Sari. Mohammad Hasan advanced from Ashraf and attacked the rebel forces near Barforush (Babol), heavily defeating them after a savage battle in which Moqim Khan was shot. Sari was retaken, the other leading mutineers were executed or imprisoned, and Mazandaran fell finally under Ashagha-bash sway .o2 ™n October Hajji Jamal Fumani of Rasht and the Gilan peasantry were likewise reminded of Mohammad Hasan's suzerainty by savage extortion of money and provisions; Qazvin, too, capitulated and was given over to plunder .°? The Qajar domains now marched with Azad Khan's territory. Azad had been beset by rebellions, first in the region of Qazvin, where he Spent some time during the spring and summer of 1755, though retaining his hold on Isfahan .°> He also probably recruited reinforcements from Azerbaijan and was evidently expected to march on Shiraz--especially by Nasir Khan Lari, who, ignorant of the rate of Qajar expansion, was keeping an anxious eye on developments in Fars. Fath 'Ali Khan was sent out ahead in August with 12,000 men (later reinforced by Azad, or more likely by rumor alone, to 20,000) and on 13 November Azad

left Isfahan with all his officers and an estimated 47,000 men. Before his departure he had extorted 6000 tumans from the Armenians of Julfa,°> but had taken nothing from the Europeans, thanks to the intercession of his “French physician," le Sieur Simon, a French secret agent who had recently arrived in Isfahan and inpressed Azad with his medical skill (see appendix) 66 It was soon evident that Nasir Khan's expectations were groundless: Azad hed left Isfahan not for a massive march on Shiraz, but for Kashan, where Fath 'Ali Khan, after plundering the town, had been defeated by either a Zand or a Qajar force .°/ Karim Khan, who had just set off on a raid to Kerman, heard this news when he was four days under way, and immediately swerved and raced to Isfahan. Azad's skeleton garrison of 300 fled on his approach, and he took the city without resistance on 17 December, a month after Azad's departure. He stayed only two days, long enough to execute twenty-eight persons who had collaborated with the Afghans, then set off in pursuit. Caught between the Zand hammer and the Qajar anvil--Mohammad Hasan was now reported to be in Tehran--Azad and his allies decided to cut their losses before the worst of winter was upon them and made all speed back to Urmiya early in 1756.°°

61. RSN IX, 22-24; MN, 301; cf. Nafisi, 34. 62. RSN IX, 27-28; Butkov I, 416, 417. 63. Butkov I, 414; GD VII, 13, 15 and 29 April, 19 June 1755; VIII, 31

August 1755; SP 97/38, 25 May 1755. 64. GD VIII, 5 September, 17 October, 23 November, 18 and 21 December 1755;

Carmelites, 661. 65. Hovhanyants, 287; GD VIII, 18 and 21 December 1755. 66. GD VIII, 18, 21 and 22 December 1755, the last recording a letter from

Simon himself. 67. GD VIII, 22 December 1755 (from Simon's letter, naming Mohanmad and Shaykh “Ali, the Zand khans, as the victors); Carmelites, 661 (naming Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar). 68. GD VIII, 30 December 1755; 5, 13 and 20 January, 24 February, 21 March 1756.

4.

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar

4.1 THE QAJARS REACH ISFAHAN

With Azad squeezed out of the center, Qajars and Zands were brought face to face for the second time. Early in 1756 Isfahan was about to enter its second decade

from Nader Shah's last visit as the most regularly captured, recaptured, and pil-

laged city in Iran. Its neighbors, as ever, fared little better. During that Winter the Zands busied themselves with building up their depleted resources by exploiting what little was left in the towns already bled by Azad. Kerman was presented with demands for 3000 tumans in cash and 1000 tumans' worth of goods; Isfahan with a bill for 50,000 tumans, Yazd for half this sum. ‘Ali Mohammad Khar. Zand laid siege to Yazd to enforce this levy, but was defeated by the governor Taqi Khan Bafgi and retired to Isfahan.! The various governors of the towns of Persian Iraq who were anxious to retain their appointments (and if possible have their contributions reduced) presented themselves at court to pay their respects to the new regime. Among them was Mirzz Mo'izz ol-Din Ghaffari of Kashan, the father of the chronicler, who was confirmed as hakem of Qom, Kashan, Natanz, and Jawshaqan.”

The populace of Isfahan was unlikely to be very cooperative with one whom most of them now regarded as being little better than the oppressor he had replaced, but the most serious threat to Karim's recent good fortune came from the ranks of his army of occupation. He had left Nadr Khan Zand with a thousand men to garrison Shiraz and punish Qashqa'i and Mamassani raiders, sent Torab Khan with two thousand horse to Kangan to levy men and supplies from the Gulf shaykhs for a new campaign against Lar,» and had in addition to this his commitments in Yazd and Kerman; all of these operations required a proportion of Zands and other

loyal tribesmen as "stiffeners.'' As a result, a large part of his army in Isfahar now consisted of the Arab infantry that he had recruited from the Garmsir and Dashtestan over two years before. Disgruntled at the length of their service, the unaccustomed hardships of a winter on the plateau, and probably most of all at the inadequacy of their pay during the Zands' lean years, this contingent now demanded their release: Karim Khan, foreseeing a confrontation with the Qajars, refused. 1. GDVII, 1 February, 15 and 31 March 1756. 2. GM, 7. 3. GD VIII, 20 January 1756; GM, 6. 62

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar 63 On 20 March two envoys had arrived from Mohammad Hasan Khan with a Nawruz of-

fer to make the Zand chief beglerbegi of the Garmsir if he recognized Esma'il Shah, still in Qajar hands, and cooperated under Mohammad Hasan in subjugating the rest of Iran; otherwise he could expect no mercy. This ultimatum, which only made

Karim more adamant in his refusal to release his Dashtestani levies, sparked off ) a mutiny. They erected barricades in the streets of Isfahan and for three or four days used their muskets with great effect on the troops sent against them. They were only quelled after bloody street fighting, during which the Zand leader posted snipers on roofs overlooking the barricades; he finally persuaded the leaders to submit on the promise of a free pardon, which he duly honored.“ But the damage had been done: Isfahan was indefensible and Karim's field army too Scattered outside the city and too disunited within to oppose effectively the Qajar army now marching southward.

Azad was at that moment occupied by a rebellion at Tabriz, which removed any

pressure there might have been on the Qajar chief to remain in force at Qazvin or Tehran and enabled him to move on toward Qom and Kashan, having prudently left Esma'il III behind in Mazandaran.” Shaykh 'Ali Khan Zand was apparently already

in the Farahan region, where the Qajars were next bound. Karim hastily sent Mohammad Khan to reinforce him and the two of them marched their united forces to

forestall the Qajar advance on Isfahan. They halted at Sanjan in the district of Kazzaz,° where, on 27 March, with late snow and ice still underfoot, they met Mohanmad Hasan's army in pitched battle. The Zands, probably heavily outnumbered, were decisively defeated: Shaykh 'Ali Khan and fifteen men managed to flee back to Isfahan, but four other officers, including Mohammad Khan, whose horse was shot from under him, were captured by the Qajars. ] Mohammad Khan was subsequently sent to be imprisoned in Mazandaran, but when

he heard of the Qajars' defeat and retreat from Shiraz in the sumer of 1758, he contrived to escape by night. Next day the governor Mohammad Beg sent a pursuit party, which soon tracked down the fugitive and sent him to Sari, where a few months later he was put to death. Eskandar Khan, Kamar Khan, and now Mohammad Khan "Bi-kala,'' hero of the escape of the Pari prisoners from Azad, the killing of 'Ali Mardan, and many other exploits, had all been lost to the Zand chieftain in the space of a few years .° Mohammad Hasan Khan did not stay long in the vicinity of Kashan, since

4. TGG, 50; Fasaé'i I, 210; GD VIII, 2 April 1756; Saldanha, 100 (from a

letter to Bombay from Bandar Rig dated 3 May 1756); Hovhanyants, 287. 5. GD VIII, 21 and 31 March 1756; GM, 8.

6. South of Farahan; see Dehgan, 75, 78 and notes; FJI II, 230 and map;

Kayhan II, 384 (map). 7. GM, 7-8; TGG, 53; Saru'i, 16b; GD VIII, 31 March, 17 April 1756; MAE

Perse VII, No. 91. 8. GM, 38; Kuhmarra'i, 464; MT, 317. Rostam (257) and Saru'i (16b) remark

that Mohammad Khan was known by the nickname bi-kala ("headless") because the top

of his scalp had been sliced off in battle.

64 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 nothing now stood between him and Isfahan. Unable to sustain a siege, Karim moved out with his Zand veterans (as few as eight hundred by some accounts) to Gulunabad,

a few farsakhs to the east on the Yazd road, the site of the battle against the Ghalji in 1722 that had sealed the doom of the Safavid Dynasty.” Here Mohammad Hasan caught up with him by about 1 April 1756, routed his small force, and on the same day entered Isfahan unopposed. 2? 4.2 AZAD KHAN REGAINS THE INITIATIVE

Karim Khan and his two or three thousand surviving adherents fled back to their recent refuge of Shiraz, where they arrived ten days later. Under Nadr Khan's garrison the town had remained loyal, and Karim set about fortifying it in earnest. Mohammad Hasan was content for a few months to bleed the central Iranian towns of any reserves they might have kept back from Azad and Karim. The Armenians of Julfa, already destitute, were forced to melt down their church vessels, ornaments, and vestments in an attempt to meet his demands for 8000 tumans .11 From Isfahan and Juifa streams of refugees left for Khorasan, Kerman, Yazd, or Ottoman Iraq. The Qajar chief had moreover to keep a weather eye on Azad's movements: in May the Afghan was rumored to have sent troops to Qajar-controlled Rasht and to be

preparing for a fresh onslaught on Isfahan, but a little later was reported to have retired to Urmiya after losing a battle with a Safavid pretender, another reputed son of the late Tahmasb, calling himself Shah Solayman.° Late in June, Mohammad Hasan judged the time ripe for an advance on Shiraz. Leaving Isfahan in the hands of Amir Guna Khan Irlu Afshar, he marched into Fars without opposition, but found Shiraz itself too well-defended to take without ar-

tillery. Further operations were cut short after about a week of vain attempts to draw the Zands out for a general engagement, when news arrived that Azad and Fath "Ali Khan Afshar, at the head of a large new army, had already advanced as far as Qom. Mohammad Hasan was obliged to race back immediately to protect Isfahan,

9. See BJI X, 170; Kayhan II, 410 (map). The village is also known variously as Jolunabad, Jolnabad, Golnabad; cf. Braun, 199; Lockhart, Safavz Dynasty, 130-43,

10. GM, 9; TGG, 53-54; GD VIII, 17, 21 and 25 April 1756; Saldanha, 100. Ghaffari and Nami, perhaps confused by the intervention of Nawruz, include this campaign in their narrative of events for the year 1168; and although Ghaffari's date for Nawruz of 1168 (8 Jomada II) is in fact correct for 1168/1755, the events he describes here took place a year later, in March 1756, as shown by the European sources. This complicates his chronology: his date for Golunabad (22 Jomada ITI)

corresponds, if it refers to 1168, to 5 April, which is unnecessarily long after

Kazzaz; and if to 1169, to 24 March, which would be even before Kazzaz, according to the reliable source of MAE Perse VII, No. 91. The dates given in the European sources for Golunadbad and the fall of Isfahan vary from 26 March (Carmelites, 661)

to 1 April; this last date is the latest available (in Wood's report from Bandar Rig cited in Saldanha, 100) and the best reconcilable with the overall time scale (Hovhanyants, 288, gives August 1756, perhaps in confusion with Azad's next occu-

pation of the city as noted below).

11. Hovhanyants, 288-90. 12. GD VIII, 21 May, 22 June 1756; Saldanha, 100. 13. Saldanha, 100; GD VIII, 29 May, 8 June 1756.

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar 65 where he arrived tired and dusty in advance of his army with a suite of only eight or ten men on Il July 14 Nasir Khan Lari, having evidently conjectured that the Qajar chief was more likely to subdue Fars than had been Karim or Azad before hin, had responded to his summons to join him outside Shiraz, but the Qajar's precipitate retreat found him still on the way, and he slunk quietly back to Darab.° Within ten days of his return Mohammad Hasan had mustered upwards of 18,000

to 20,000 men, with artillery, to pit against Azad's reputed 40,000, and set off to Kashan, apparently with the intention of effecting a junction there with 'Ali Khan Ghalji and his 4000 to 5000 men and perhaps others of his officers in the region. But Fath ‘Ali Khan intercepted 'Ali Khan Ghalji with a force twice the Size and put him to flight. The Qajar khan, judging that he now had little hope if it came to a pitched battle, veered east on reaching Kashan and withdrew via the eastern edge of the Salt Lake over the Firuzkuh Pass to Sari. At the same time Azad continued on his way uninterrupted from Qom through Kashan to Isfahan, which he occupied for the second time in less than a year about mid-August of 1756.1 Azad stayed only briefly in Isfahan, partly because it had nothing more to offer after the successive lootings and depopulation of recent years (the Carmelites there estimated that during Mohammad Hasan Khan's recent occupation alone some one hundred forty thousand Julfans had fled the town) 1 but mainly because he wished if possible to deliver the coup de grace to his discomfited Qajar rival before the onset of winter. Karim Khan could for the moment be ignored, being Still at loggerheads with his recalcitrant Dashtestani allies, who in October defeated a force under Shaykh 'Ali Khan and were not finally subdued until Decenber +8 Accordingly, Azad moved rapidly northward again, but circumstances conSpired to delay him. At Farahan he clashed with a body of local musketeers and had further to reduce the fortress of Hajji Tughan Farahani, whose spirited daughter had allegedly caused Karim Khan so much trouble some six years before.” Azad had already dispatched Fath 'Ali Khan to pursue the Qajars over Firuzkuh. The Afshar managed to take Mohammad Hasan's baggage at Kashan and hastened directly

north through Varamin in an attempt to cut off the Qajars' retreat before they could reach the pass. But he was too late. Mohammad Hasan left sufficient troops under his cousin Mohammad Khan Qoyunlu to block Firuzkuh and the other Elburz

passes and indeed waited several weeks at 'Aliabad2? to meet the Afshar in battle 14. TGG, 54; GM, 14-15; MAE Perse VII, No. 94 (a letter from Simon dated 28 August 1756); GD IX, 7 August 1756.

15. GD VIII, 20 July; IX, 7 August 1756; Brieven 2777 (1757), 3.

16. TGG, 55; MAE Perse VII, No. 94; GD IX, 2 and 20 September 1756.

17. GD IX, 28 September (citing letters from the Carmelites at Isfahan dated 30 August). The figure is grossly inflated; cf. 14.5 and table 1. 18. GD IX, 20 and 25 October 1756, 9 January 1757; cf. Hovhanyants, 288.

19. GM, 16; see chap. 1, note 41. 20. Present-day Shahi, where the Firuzkuh route debouches into the coastal plain on the way to Sari; see FJI III, map (Sari); Kayhan II, 286 and 282 (map).

66 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 should he risk himself so far into the mountains. But since Fath 'Ali failed to advance, Mohammad Hasan returned to Astarabad. By October Azad had to recall his lieutenant and direct his march through Qazvin and the Safid-Rud route in order to

outflank the Qajars along the Gilan coast. On 19 November at Rasht, Fath 'Ali and his twelve thousand defeated Mohammad Hasan's lieutenant, Amir Guna Khan Afshar,

and three days later occupied the town. By the end of December, Azad was in full control of the region and arranged for supply boats to accompany his projected march. He also sent ahead ‘Abd ol1-'Ali Khan 'Arab Mishmast and Shahbaz Khan Don-

boli to secure Rudsar and fortify the approaches . “+ 4.3 QAJAR VICTORIES IN THE NORTH

A further anxiety for Mohammad Hasan Khan, and one which had probably dictated his returning immediately to Astarabad instead of preparing an ambush for Azad, was

that his rival and viceroy of necessity in the Qajar headquarters, Hosayn Khan Develu, had shown signs of attempting to usurp command during the Qoyunlu leader's absence. On his rapid return they were, however, reconciled, and Mohammad Hasan

could now turn his attention to Azad's threat from the west.“ He progressed through Sari, where he picked up his figurehead king Esma'il III, and continued to Amol. Here he was joined by more of his recent recruits from Khorasan, including ‘Ali Khan Kord and Ebrahim Khan Boghayeri. Three hundred boats were commandeered

to supply his march along the coast, but, to precede his main attack, he planned a bold stroke with his seven or eight thousand cavalry against Azad's front line at Rudsar. It was still winter and Azad, resigned by custom to wintering at Rasht, would not expect his opponent to open a serious campaign for at least a month. This rapid night ride and cavalry charge at dawn on 10 February caught his advance picket lines at Rudsar completely by surprise: ‘Abd ol-'Ali Khan and his officers fled, leaving their men trapped in their trenches between the forest and the sea to be slaughtered or captured by the Qajars. The Afghans' second line of four or five thousand men, under the command of Khosraw Khan Mokri, likewise broke up in

confusion and hared back to Lahijan, where their panic communicated itself to Shahbaz Khan Donboli and his garrison of eight thousand men; they in turn retreated up the Safid-Rud valley without offering any resistance and were harassed into the night by a detachment of eight hundred Qajar horse. Afghans, Afshars, Kurds, Georgians were cut down by the thousands in the subsequent mopping-up. Azad, at the end of this disastrous chain reaction, had no choice but to abandon Rasht the next day and join Shahbaz Khan and his other officers with what forces they could retrieve from the general panic, plus hostages from among the leading

21. GM, 17-18; TGG, 55; RSN IX, 31; MAE Perse VII, Nos. 96, 97 (from Simon

at Julfa, 9 January 1757); Butkov I, 242, 243, 418-19; III, 94. 22. GM, 15, 18.

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar 67 local kalantars, in a retreat to Qazvin. Here he had arrived, his retinue further depleted by desertions and deaths from exposure in the snow-swept Elburz, by 16 February, when Mohammad Hasan marched into Rasht.2>

Mohanmad Hasan spent the rest of the winter rapidly consolidating his gains in Gilan and Talesh as far as Qizil Aghach (Astara), on the southern edge of the Dasht-e Moghan, “4 allowing Azad to lead his threadbare army southward, where the towns of Persian Iraq were enjoying a brief respite from organized looting and enforced contributions to the war effort of the three contestants (refugees were even reported to be returning to Isfahan) 29 Azad evidently expected the Qajar chief to follow him south, and Mohammad Hasan may have deliberately encouraged this impression. In fact he stayed for a month on the Moghan Steppe in a vain attempt to recruit the khans of Shusha, Darband, Qaraja-dagh, and the Shahiseven to his neo-Safavid cause. Only the closest geographically, Kazem Khan Qaraja-daghi, joined his forces. ‘Then in spring he quickly cut southwestward across Azerbaijan toward Azad's home base of Urmiya. At Tabriz, which fell without a fight, he gained more local recruits and detached "Abbas Qoli Khan Boghayeri and Safi Yar Khan Afshar to plunder Maragha. A few days later he entrusted his baggage to Kazem Khan at a site some distance away and laid siege to Urmiya, where Azad's governor, Yusef Khan Hotaki Afghan, sent off urgent messages to his master and shut himself in the qaz'a to wait.2° 4.4 THE BATTLE OF URMIYA

Azad himself had meanwhile been occupied in subduing the pockets of resistance around Farahan which had engaged his attention before his Gilan misadventure .”’ On learning of the danger to Urmiya, he assembled his followers and marched from Isfahan on 15 April 1757 resolved on a decisive battle. ''Nous sommes en marche," wrote Simon in excitement, ''. . . nous allons combattre Mouhammed Hassan Khan," as together with his concubine and young son he accompanied the Afghan army northward, never to be heard from again.-® They approached via Garus (Bijar) and Mokri, recruiting additional Kurdish troops with the help of Salim Pasha of Ardalan, set up a fortified base and baggage camp in the charge of the Balbas Kurd contingent, and advanced on Urmiya. Only then did Mohammad Hasan act: leaving a force of four or five thousand men to maintain the blockade, he advanced and met the Afghan army toward the middle of June some six farsakhs from Urmiya.*” The Qajar chief placed on the right his Boghayeri allies, Ebrahim and 'Abbas 23. GM, 18-19; TGG, 56-57; RSN IX, 32-33; Butkov I, 419-20; III, 95; MAE Perse VII, No. 97; GD IX, 20 March 1757. 24. GM, 19; TGG, 57; Butkov I, 420.

25. GD IX, 4 April 1757. 26. Butkov I, 243, 420-22; III, 95; GM, 19-20; TGG, 59. 27. TGG, 59. 28. MAE Perse VII, Nos. 100, 101. 29. GM, 20; TGG, 59; Butkov I, 422-23; III, 95.

68 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 Qoli Khan, with a thousand each of foot and horse, and on the left 'Ali Khan Ghalji with a similar force, supported by seven thousand others under Mohammad Vali Khan Qajar; he posted himself with his Qajar gholams on a hillock overlooking the battle line. Facing this force, which could not have totalled more than twelve or fifteen thousand, were Azad's Afghans and artillery, flanked on the right by Fath "Ali Khan's Afshar and Azeri troops and on the left by Qalandar Khan Afghan's Afghan-Uzbek contingent, a total according to Saru'i of twenty thousand men. Predictably, the day soon looked as if it would go to Azad's superior numbers: several of the Qajar's less devoted allies--Baluchis, Afghans, and Kurds--turned in flight and were only driven back to the fray by blows from Mohammad Hasan's battleax. At this critical juncture Shahbaz Khan Donboli, in command of the Azeri troops under Fath 'Ali, took his men over to the Qajar side; he was followed by other long-disaffected elements in the Afghan army, whereupon Azad's hard core lost heart and fled the field. The Qajars pursued them back to their baggage camp, which had already been abandoned, looted their fill, collected further al-

lies or prisoners from the stragglers, and returned to prosecute the siege of Urmiya.>°

With all hope of relief gone, Yusef Khan held out a few days more until 19 July, before surrendering the fortress on generous terms: he and a fighting contingent of four thousand Afghans and Uzbeks joined the Qajar army, while all the other Afghans--amounting to two thousand families--were shepherded off to be re-

settled in Mazandaran. Thus it was that all of Azad's territory and treasury, and most of his army, fell into Mohammad Hasan's hands. Fath 'Ali Khan, who had fled to Khoy, was induced by a letter from Ebrahim Khan Boghayeri to join him and the other renegade officers in Qajar service. Azad had fled with a handful of companions over Shahrezur to take refuge in Baghdad. >+ Mohammad Hasan's position at Urmiya and Tabriz was threatened, as Azad's had been, by the independent mountain rulers immediately to the north. Panah Khan Javanshir from his stronghold of Qal'a Shusha (Shisha) refused to recognize Qajar Ssuzerainty over Ganja and Qarabagh. In autumn 1757 Mohammad Hasan besieged his

fortress, but notwithstanding the assistance of his new allies could make no impression on it. Taymoraz and Erekle, though approached for an alliance, held aloof. Mohammad Hasan contented himself with receiving the temporary homage of the leading men of Shirvan and Erivan and of the Zeyad-oghlu (Zeyadlu) Qajars of Ganja.>* However, on his way back to Tabriz across the Moghan Steppe, a raiding

30. GM, 20-23; TGG, 60; Saru'i, 17a-18b; Donboli, Tajreba II, 20-21; RSN IX,

35-37; cf. Nafisi, 35.

31. GM, 23; TGG, 60; MAE Perse VII, No. 104; Carmelites, 661; GD IX, 9 and 30 July; X, 10 September 1757; SP 97/39, 1 October 1757; SP 97/40, 16 January 1758; Brosset, 200. 32. GM, 23: TGG, 60; Butkov I, 243; III, 96; RSN IX, 38-39. The Zeyad-oghlu clan of the Qajars had provided the beglerbegi of Qarabagh under the Safavids; see Bakikhanov, 106; Rohrborn, 65.

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar €9 party from Qarabagh and Sheki attacked his camp, taking much plunder and inflict-

ing heavy losses: as a result, many of his Shahiseven and other Azeri allies deserted homeward, leaving the Qajar with a dangerously small force for his projected campaign against the Zands.>° 4.5 MOHAMMAD HASAN'S SECOND OCCUPATION OF ISFAHAN

This decisive tussle between Azad and Mohammad Hasan had occupied some eighteen

months since the Qajar leader's abortive invasion of Fars. This left Karim Khan free to mount a series of operations designed to secure the entire hinterland of Shiraz, from the Kuhgiluya mountains across the Garmsir to the coastal plains of Khuzestan and Dashtestan (7.3-4), the Gulf ports from Bandar Rig through Bushire to Bandar 'Abbas (10.3-4)} and Nasir Khan's mountains of Lar (7.8). His consequent neglect of the Isfahan region had left a vacuum, which Mohammad Hasan was now in

a position to fill. Since Azad's departure in April of the previous year, Isfahan had first been ruled by his appointees Ja'far Mirza and Taher Soltan, and though the Dominican

friar there could rejoice in June that they were "for the moment free of tyrants,' he had to deplore the constant exactions, barely short of looting, that went on under the pretext of collecting debts and indemnities and the daily exodus of Armenians from Julfa to the freer climate of Karim's Shiraz.°* In September, after he had word of Azad's defeat at Urmiya, the Zand chief was able to spare five thousand men under Shaykh 'Ali and his brother Nazar 'Ali Khan to retake his old capital. On their approach Amir Guna Khan Afshar, commanding the vestiges of Azad's garrison, withdrew through Ardestan to the desert. From this new base Shaykh ‘Ali sent his brother to restore Zand authority at Golpaygan and Borujerd-” About the same time came rumors that Mohammad Hasan had sent twenty thousand men by way of Kermanshah to attack the Zands .~© This heralded a lightning winter offensive--a speciality of the Qajar Khan, as he demonstrated against Azad--which

expected. |

was to lead to a decision in the Zand-Qajar conflict, though not in the way he Leaving Tabriz under his adolescent son Agha Mohammad Khan with trusted advisers and a garrison of eight thousand men, Mohammad Hasan commenced a strategic pincer movement on the Zand base of Borujerd, sending Mohammad Vali Khan a few

days ahead to swing round through Sava while he himself took a direct route through the Khamsa to Hamadan. Nazar 'Ali Khan was able to retreat in time to 33. Butkov I, 244, 423. A report from Kerman to Gombroon on 28 December 1757 (GD X) brought a rumor that Mohammad Hasan had been defeated in Azerbaijan

and retired to Mazandaran, which, allowing for exaggeration, could refer to this reverse; cf. also Brosset, 235.

34. MAE Perse VII, No. 101 (letter from Fra Raymond Berselli, dated 1 Jume 1757); Carmelites, 661. 35. GD X, 22 September 1757; GM, 28-29. 36. GD X, 10 September 1757.

70 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 Isfahan. The two Qajar armies joined forces in Silakhur and were then further reinforced by Shahbaz Khan Donboli with six thousand men. This large force made Straight for Isfahan. Shaykh 'Ali Khan and his small force, having looted the city and sent the chief citizens to Shiraz, prudently abandoned it on 9 December and reached Shiraz only thirty men in number. The Qajar chief entered Isfahan once again on 15 December 1757.>!

He at once sent a large detachment under Safar 'Ali Aga Qoyunlu to secure Kashan, where the Zand-appointed governor, Mirza Mo'izz ol~Din Mohammad Ghaffari prepared for a siege; but Hosayn ‘Ali Khan Qasemlu Afshar, who had been Ebrahim

Mirza's governor there and had managed to stay on in a minor official post, treacherously let the Qajars in. Here and elsewhere the Zand officials and supporters were imprisoned and Mohammad Hasan was soon in administrative control of Isfahan province .~®

Logistically, however, he was in a tight corner. The ceaseless ravages of rival armies since Nader's end ten years before, culminating in five separate occupations in the last two years alone, had brought the agricultural and commercial life of the great Safavid capital to a standstill. Not only had money and goods been ruthlessly plundered and fields and pastures denuded, but the ensuing depopulation by voluntary emigration--a process incalculably more ruinous than any of the Safavids' or Nader Shah's enforced transportations--had taken away all chance of recovery along with the refugee merchants, farmers, and artisans. Finally, disease attacked the crop and the harvest of 1757 failed all over northern and central Iran. Isfahan was now in the grip of a famine that made it difficult enough for the city to support its own Starving survivors and quite impossible to maintain Mohammad Hasan's predatory horde. As in the Afghan siege of 1722, people

were reduced to eating dogs, cats, and rats, and some even sold their children to the invaders for a handful of grain. During the seven months of famine, including three of Qajar occupation, between twelve thousand and twenty-one thousand were

estimated to have starved or been beaten to death in the city alone.*” Bodies remained unburied until eaten by animals, thrown into a ditch, or piled against the mud walls of buildings, which were then pulled down on top of them, ''thus providing soil and tombstone at the same time 17? Mohammad Hasan doubtless made efforts to alleviate the famine (14.6); however, much futile brutality was urged on him by the demands of his own hard-driven troops, many if not most of them recent acquisitions from Azad, whose loyalty had 37. GM, 29-30; TGG, 60; Butkov I, 244, 424; GD X, 30 December 1757, 29 Janu-

ary, 10 and 26 February 1758. Ives (220), who was then at Bandar “Abbas, gives the number of the Zand garrison as 13,000, but only from hearsay. The Qajar army is variously estimated at 50,000 (RSN IX, 41), between 30,000 and 40,000 (GD X, 29 January), and 20,000 to 30,000 (GD X, 26 February). 39, ow 30.31; TGG, 61-62; Rostam, 285; GD X, 21 July 1758; Hovhanyants, 290. 40. Hovhanyants, 290.

Mohammad Hasan. Khan Qajar 71 to be bought in regular instalments and who, not having been paid during their recent blitzkrieg and finding Isfahan already squeezed dry of plumder, were beginning to desert .*4 In March Mohammad Hasan decided that he could no longer usefully or even safely remain in Isfahan, so, leaving Hosayn Khan Develu in charge

of the city, he set out with his large and restless army to invest Shiraz. 4? 4.6 THE SIEGE OF SHIRAZ

Karim Khan had not been idle in the face of the Qajar threat, which was in every Way a repetition of Mohammad Hasan's first campaign against him just two years before, and was to be met in the same manner. A small Qajar force had already been sent soon after the fall of Isfahan to observe Shiraz and raid Fars , 7° but this had not prevented the Zands from stockpiling supplies in the well-fortified city. Karim had ordered everyone living within a radius of three to four days' journey from Shiraz to move into the town with their effects and supplies of grain, and Sadeq had seized a Yazd-bound caravan worth 5000-6000 tumans and added

its cargo to the Zand funds.“ Nevertheless, it had been reported at Bandar ‘Abbas in mid-January that the Zand leader's ten thousand troops were as poorly paid and supplied and at least as restless as those of Mohammad Hasan: Safar 'Ali Khan Zand had already deserted to the Qajars and more, it was conjectured, would follow.” Again Mohammad Hasan sent Nasir Khan Lari a diploma as beglerbegi of

Fars, and again the latter set out with two thousand men to join the expedition.” The Qajars advanced slowly, from Abada cutting across the hills to Bayza, Fahlian, and Kazarun. This loyal Zand base at the edge of the Garmsir was occupied by Shaykh 'Ali Khan, but he retired in the face of an advance force of five thousand men under Fath 'Ali Khan and Ebrahim Khan Boghayeri. In Kazarun the Qajar chief assured himself of a stock of siege equipment, which he had sorely missed on his last campaign in Fars, and moved on. Apparently, he met no further resistance, even at the notorious pass of Kotal-e Dokhtar, which had been the ruin of 'Ali Mardan before him, until his army finally camped one farsakh from Shiraz on 11 May. He defeated a Zand force under Nadr Khan outside the city, capturing their baggage, and then commenced the siege. He was joined some time in the next month by Nasir Khan Lari, by which time he seems to have made little progress and already to have been suffering from a shortage of supplies ."” Whatever the nature of the Qajar siege equipment, it was evidently too poor to have any effect on the newly fortified walls and moat of Shiraz. Daily

41. GD X, 10 February 1758; Butkov I, 423; III, 96. 42. TGG, 62-63; Butkov I, 424; GD X, 14 April 1758; Hovhanyants, 290. 43. GD X, 28 February 1758.

44, GD X, 6 March 1758. 45. GD X, 19 February 1758.

46. GD X, 15 February, 14 April, 28 June 1758; TGG, 64. Fasd'i (I, 210) has 3000, Nafisi (36) 6000 troops. | 47. GM, 33-34; TGG, 63-64; Fasa'i I, 211; GD X, 9 June, 10 July 1758.

72 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 sorties led by Shaykh 'Ali Khan kept the town from complete encirclement, and so well had the local scorched-earth tactics been implemented that the Qajar army, man and horse, began very soon to go hungry. Ina matter of weeks the siege became an ironic copy of Karim's abortive attack on Astarabad five years previously-the besieged it was who, well protected and provisioned, held the besiegers in a State of open blockade by denying them freedom to forage. History was repeated

even in detail: when the Qajars had to send off all their mounts--ten to twelve thousand horses and mules--to the Ardakan region, the nearest available pasture, about sixty miles distant, Shaykh 'Ali Khan's guerrilla band followed. He surprised nearly three hundred outriders under Abu'l Qasem Khan, the commander of Mohammad Hasan's bodyguard (nasaqehi-basht), and took them captive. He overtook the main body of the escort at Pol-e Duzakh, in the Doshman-Zeyari country, and

after a short, sharp skirmish, captured most of these already dispirited men together with all their animals. All were taken back to Karim Khan in Shiraz, to the delight of the besieged and the chagrin of the besiegers."° The Afghan contingents now lost all stomach for this one-sided siege, and Mohammad Hasan's more stringent precautions against just such disaffection only

increased their hostility. On the eve of 26 Shawwal 1171/3 July 1758, the greater part of the Afghans and Uzbeks suddenly plundered the Qajar camp at night and deserted in a body, later to find service in most cases with Karim Khan. ‘” Mohammad Hasan now found himself left with but a fraction of his original army and no horses to speak of. The same day he struck what was left of his camp and fled ignominiously northward. Nasir Khan once again eluded pursuit by Shaykh 'Ali Khan

and retired to his mountain fastness.°° The Qajar chief and a few companions are said to have covered the 300 miles

to Isfahan in three days, but alarm and disintegration flew even faster. Hosayn Khan Develu and the Isfahan garrison had already evacuated the city for Mazandaran

with a promptness that suggests they had anticipated their chief's actual withdrawal from Shiraz by several days. The Yukhari-bash chieftain and his allies had allegedly conspired against Mohammad Hasan at least once before, during his retreat from Azad in autumn 1756, but the Qajar overlord had been unwilling to risk an open feud during this critical period and had admitted Hosayn Khan to partnership once more. Now the latter evidently saw his chance to secure Astarabad and sandwich his rival between the pursuing Zands and his own men. Choosing therefore

48. GM, 35-36; TGG, 64-65; Hovhanyants, 291; Fasa'i I, 211. Ghaffari identifies the Qajar commander of the grazing detail as Karim Khan Borbor (see 12.9 and note 72). Doshman-Zeyari territory lies northwest of Ardakan; I have been unable to locate Pol-e Duzakh. 49. GM, 36; TGG, 66; Saru'i, 19a. The last two give 1172, as, by implication, does Ghaffari; but it can be seen from their dating of the subsequent campaign in Mazandaran early in 1172, and from the Gombroon Diary, that this is an

error for 1171. Fasa'i (I, 211) has the correct year, but gives 23 Shawwal as the date of the Qajar retreat. 50. TGG, 66; GD X, 24 July 1758; Malcolm, 131.

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar 73 not to waste time at Isfahan, Mohammad Hasan set off immediately via Kashan, where

his Qoyunlu governor Safar 'Ali Khan had remained loyally at his post, to try to forestall Hosayn Khan's treachery .>4.7 PURSUIT TO MAZANDARAN

At the moment of his retreat from Shiraz, Mohammad Hasan had sent couriers to his beglerbegi of Mazandaran, Mohammad Beg Qoyunlu, to apprise him of the situation

and instruct him to take appropriate action in the case of the large numbers of Afghans serving or settled at Sari after Azad's defeat, before the news of their compatriots' defection should reach them. The news reached Mohammad Beg ten days later, on 7 Zu'1-Qa'da 1171/13 July 1758.°% He at once summoned Yusef Khan Hotaki

and the other senior Afghans, as yet ignorant of the Shiraz debacle, and placed them under arrest. The situation was delicate: according to Nami, the governor had an immediate garrison of only sixty or seventy men, and could hardly cope with the thousands of Afghans in Mazandaran. He delayed for two days and when there was still no news of Mohammad Hasan, but on the contrary it was reported that the Develu rebels under Hosayn Khan had reached Firuzkuh and had already been joined by a body of Afghans, he brought out his prisoners one by one, beginning with Yusef Khan, and

by nightfall had butchered all fifty. By this time the Afghan rank and file had realized their danger and barricaded themselves behind makeshift defenses; but the governor called up Qajar reserves and stirred up a mob about four thousand strong from the local populace, which on the second day of the ensuing battle overran the Afghans, killing and looting with abandon. The survivors fled into the forest, and for the moment the Afghan menace was over 8 Learning of this, Hosayn Khan Develu changed his intention of passing through Sari and swung eastward through Fulad-Mahalla direct to Astarabad, where his clansmen would be ready to welcome him. Not far behind him, Mohammad Hasan and

his small band of horsemen had now reached Tehran, at which stage he was deserted by three of his lieutenants and their men: Fath ‘Ali Khan Afshar and Shahbaz Khan Donboli, inherited from Azad, hurried westward to recover their Azerbaijan territories (Urmiya was evidently abandoned by its Qajar garrison on the news of their chief's defeat); while Ebrahim Khan Boghayeri, who had sampled defeat under Afsharids and Qajars, retired to his home territory of Damghan to await the Zands, should they be successful enough to qualify as his next employer.>" 51. GM, 37; TGG, 67; Hovhanyants, 291. The Develu chieftain's full name was Mohammad Hosayn Khan, but this is often abbreviated to Hosayn Khan in the sources. To avoid confusion with Mohammad Hasan Khan, this practice has been adopted here.

52. GM, 37; Saru'ti, 19b. This manuscript has 1172, but see note 49 above. 53. TGG, 67-68; GM, 32; Saru'i, 19b; RSN IX, 54-55. Ghaffari says that

Mohammad Beg invited the Afghan leaders to a Barmecide feast, which seems a gra-

tuitous dramatization of an event horrifying enough in itself. 54. TGG, 69-70; MN, 304.

74 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 Mohammad Beg Qoyunlu and a dozen other Qajar officers set about raising a local force to protect themselves against marauding Afghans, Soon they were able to meet Mohammad Hasan at 'Aliabad with an army of several thousand. °° They accompanied him to Sari, where they learned that Hosayn Khan Develu had after all been unable to carry out his Yukhari-bash coup at Astarabad, and had been obliged to flee, with his supporters and family and such of Mohammad Hasan's treasure as he was able to seize, to Damghan and the aid of Ebrahim Khan Boghayeri. The Ashagha-bash chief was now able to dispatch his Mazandaran recruits to Astarabad

to organize its defense, while he set off with his cavalry to exact vengeance from Hosayn Khan.

No sooner had he commenced the blockade of Damghan than he received word that Shaykh 'Ali Khan, whom Karim had sent in pursuit from Shiraz, had already arrived

at Firuzkuh with a considerable force. If the Zands should march straight to Sari, Mohammad Beg, whose chief concern seemed to be that of keeping the governorship of Mazandaran in his own hands, might well come to terms with them; nothing could then save Astarabad. Raising his siege of Damghan, he crossed the mountains by way of Fulad-Mahalla and by forced marches reached Sari before the Zands. But Qajar control of Mazandaran had everywhere been eroded: Sari, perhaps already deserted by Mohammad Beg, was in anarchy and at the mercy of plundering Yomud

Turkman, the Qajars' intractable fair-weather allies. Powerless to stop then, Mohammad Hasan took his puppet-king Esma'il, who was still residing at Sari, and

with a few loyal retainers fled to Astarabad. Shaykh ‘Ali Khan, now joined by Hosayn Khan Develu and Ebrahim Khan Boghayeri from Damghan, graciously received the submission of Mohammad Beg and the addition

to his army of other ex-Qajar sympathizers who followed him. The beglerbegi was

restored to his position with the bestowal of a robe of honor and the title of khan and reciprocated by handing over Sari and by turning informer, haling forth Mohammad Hasan's supporters from hiding and executing them himself for the Zand

general. With such a policy of recruiting Develu renegades and local quislings and of moderation toward all except anarchic elements like the pillaging Turkman, Shaykh 'Ali was soon master of Mazandaran and ready to close with Mohammad Hasan

at Astarabad.”° 4.8 CONSOLIDATION FROM SHIRAZ TO TEHRAN

Karim Khan's policy during and immediately after the siege of Shiraz had meanwhile borne full fruit. Ever since Mohammad Hasan's first attack on Shiraz in summer 1756, the Zand chief had been at pains to identify himself with the city,

fortifying it as if primarily for the protection of the citizens rather than his own military base, speaking of it as his capital ,”” attracting refugees there from 55. TGG (70) has 3000 to 4000; RSN (IX, 55), 5000; MN (304), 6000. 56. TGG, 70-72; GM, 38-39; RSN IX, 56-58; MN, 304. o7. GD VIII, 20 July 1756.

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar 75 the oppressions of Azad or Mohammad Hasan in ruined Isfahan. The rueful pen of the Gombroon diarist, cataloguing the extortions and impositions of 'Ali Mardan, Fath 'Ali, Azad, and Mohammad Hasan in Isfahan, Kerman, Yazd, and Shiraz lodges considerably fewer black marks against Karim for the first three towns and none at

all with regard to Shiraz. Particular friends to the Vakil in adversity, such as the men of Kazarun and Khesht, were generously rewarded. Enemies who submitted knew they could invariably rely on his clemency. Such were the Afghans who had deserted the Qajars and were now enrolled in the Zand army; such too were all local communities and individuals whose reception of the invaders had been ambigu-

ous, though it is likely, as Nami asserts, that the khan was wary enough to distinguish between, and note for future reference, those who had gone into hiding and those who had actively collaborated.7° Two months were spent reorganizing town and province and preparing an army to follow up Shaykh 'Ali Khan's pursuit force. Then, on the last day of 1171, corresponding to 3 September 1758, Karim and his army moved out of Shiraz, leaving Sadeq Khan to govern Fars and its dependent provinces during his absence. They camped at the Bagh-e Delgosha to celebrate the solemn day of the ‘Ashura, and on the next day, 11 Moharram/14 September, set off for Tehran.>” The Vakil combined

this advance with a general progress through the towns of central Iran, to fill by appointment of obedient governors the administrative vacuum left by the withdrawal of both his rivals from this theater (8.2). He was contacted by Hosayn Khan Develu shortly before arriving at Kashan, which he visited on 5 and 6 Rabi’ II 1172/6 and 7 December 1758. On reaching Qom a few days later he sent instructions to Shaykh 'Ali Khan to join forces with Hosayn Khan and attack Astarabad. © By the middle of December the Vakil was established in Tehran, awaiting the outcome of this campaign. 4.9 DEFEAT AND DEATH OF MOHAMMAD HASAN KHAN

As the wet Caspian winter wore on, Mohammad Hasan moved forward from Astarabad and

dug in before Ashraf to face Shaykh 'Ali Khan's army at Sari, thirty miles distant. The Zand army in turn advanced to confront this line and tried in vain with heavy fire to draw the Qajars out of their entrenched positions. By night the Zands surrounded the approaches to the Qajar lines and again tried to flush them out into the open with a dawn cavalry charge, but to no avail. Shaykh 'Ali Khan then fixed on an audacious stratagem: judging his army, now reinforced by contingents of Kurds and vengeful Afghans, to have numerical superiority enough to justify the risk, he marched past the Qajar right flank, which apparently did not extend as far as the marshy coastline, and made for Astarabad by the difficult coast road. 58. TGG, 72-73. 59. TGG, 74-75; GM, 39-40; Fasa'i I, 211; MAE Perse VIII, No. 3.

60. GM, 42-43. Ghaffari's father, reinstated as governor of Kashan, was the Vakil's host during his brief visit.

76 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 Mohammad Hasan was obliged to move back from his lines by the more usual inland

road to protect his inadequately defended capital. Apparently by pure coincidence, the armies camped parallel to each other four farsakhs along their way, the Zands on the coast, the Qajars in the district of Kolbad, with only one farsakh of woodland between them. Scouts and foragers of both sides ran into one another, shots were exchanged, and the fortuitous skirmish escalated into a full-scale engagement of close quarters. The Qajars were worsted and fled in confusion to Astarabad; but Shaykh 'Ali Khan, in view of his loss of surprise and the logistical uncertainties in hostile country, returned to Ashraf rather than risk a premature siege .o1 The campaign rapidly became the last stage of the bitter Qajar feud between Yukhari-bash and Ashagha-bash, centered on the persons of Hosayn Khan Develu and Mohammad Hasan Khan Qoyunlu. The latter sent out urgent pleas for reinforcements to the tribes of Khorasan and the Qipchaq Steppe and was joined by Vali Khan and Najaf Khan with their ten thousand Shadelu Kurds and some four thousand Turkman; with his own Qajars and the musketeers of Astarabad he soon had an army of about

eighteen thousand men. But he was uneasy about a potential fifth colum in his ranks, the remaining Yukhari-bash led by Mohammad Vali Khan Develu and his brothers. Mohammad Hasan therefore made use of a private vendetta, which was a subfeud

of the rivalry between the Qajar branches, in order to engineer their liquidation in a way that would free him of risk or direct opprobrium. He invited Sabz 'Ali Khan Shambayati of the Ashagha-bash, whose father had been killed by Mohammad Vali Khan or his father and who had since been nursing his vengeance on the Qipchaq

Steppe, to join him in Astarabad, where he was treated with great favor. The Yukhari-bash must now have been on their guard and were perhaps already plotting a countercoup, but Mohammad Hasan struck first: having provided Sabz 'Ali Khan with a band of gholams for his purpose, he summoned his blood-enemy Mohammad Vali

and his relatives to headquarters, ostensibly for a council of war, and slipped out while Sabz 'Ali's men fell upon them. This was the signal for a general arrest and massacre of the remaining Yukhari-bash, whose wealth--extracted under torture--was distributed among Mohammad Hasan's Kurdish and other new allies .°7 Having cleared the home front, Mohammad Hasan left Astarabad with his army late in January 1759 to try conclusions with Shaykh ‘Ali Khan. Evidently he would have preferred the Zand army to advance and besiege his stronghold where, as last time (2.4), they would be at the mercy of Turkman irregulars and skirmishes dictated by the Qajar garrison, which could cut their communications; but Shaykh 'A1i, probably waiting to be reinforced from Tehran by Karim, wisely stayed in Ashraf. Mohammad Hasan was obliged to try to bring him to battle before Zand reinforcements

61. TGG, 80-83; GM, 46; RSN IX, 59-63. For Kolbad, see FJI III, 239. 62. TGG, 83-85; GM, 46-47; RSN IX, 63-64. Nami has Shir “Ali for Sabz “Ali Khan Shambayati. This branch of the Bayat was a regular Qajar clan; cf. Stmer, “Bayat,"' EIp I, 1117; Beer, XXIII.

Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar 77 arrived. He advanced as slowly as possible, at an average pace of one farsakh per day, but Shaykh 'Ali was not to be hurried; he moved forward in battle order only when the Qajar army had finally halted a fortnight later about two miles from

Ashraf itself, its flanks protected by sea and forest. Battle commenced at dawn on 15 Jomada II 1172/14 February 1759. The Qajar army, outnumbered by the Zands and Afghans and consisting for up to two thirds of

its strength of newly recruited Kurdish mercenaries, had little chance: the Kurds on the left wing gave way and fled before Shaykh 'Ali's prepared onslaught, and Mohammad Khan and his Qajar cavalry, backed by a few infantry who had stood their ground, could not resist much longer. They fled back toward Astarabad along the dilapidated coastal causeway built by Shah 'Abbas, pursued by a party of Zand cavalry led by two of the renegades from Qajar service, Sabz 'Ali, a Kurd, and Mohammad 'Ali Aga Develu, the brother of Hosayn Khan. They caught up with the fugitives when a broken bridge forced them to pick their way between the mire and the forest at the edge of the road; Mohammad Hasan's horse stumbled in the mud anc Sabz "Ali struck him down.°° 4.10 THE FALL OF ASTARABAD

So ended the most dangerous and most tenacious of Karim Khan's rivals. There had

been much to admire in his military and political ability, his personal valor and generosity, his prudence and even ruthlessness, which, however, never descended

to the level of petty vindictiveness. In all these qualities he yielded little if anything to his Zand opponent, and each is said to have respected the other as a worthy adversary. During Rostam al-Hokama's version of the battle of Gomeshah, the Qajar chief is supposed to have offered a reward to anyone who could take Karim alive, vowing that he knew nobody more heroic and enjoyed watching him fight 64 and it has already been related how Mohammad Hasan ransomed with his own

funds the Zands being sold into slavery by his Turkman allies after the first battle of Astarabad (2.4). It may be conjectured that Mohammad Hasan would have made as good a vakil as

Karim had fortune favored him. Indeed, in considering the line of strong Qajar chieftains--Fath 'Ali, Mohammad Hasan, Hosayn Qoli, and Agha Mohammad--who

“reigned,"' in the words of their chroniclers, between the’ Safavid collapse and the official commencement of the Qajar Dynasty in 1796, it is tempting to agree with the implications of Qajar historians that both the Afsharid and the Zand dynasties, notwithstanding their illustrious founders, were but squalid usurpations of an empire that by right and ability should have been Qajar since the 1730s. Fath 'Ali could have ruled for as long as, and certainly no less competently, than Nader Shah; his son Mohammad Hasan would have been a competent, perhaps brilliant,

3 63. TGG, 45-47; GM, 47-49; Saru'i, 20a-b; RSN IX, 64-71; MN, 305; Malcoln, " 64. Rostam, 276.

78 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 successor; in the absence of 'Adel Shah, his son "Agha'' Mohammad would not have suffered that mutilation which, with his subsequent captivity, marred an undoubted

ability with an irresponsible vindictiveness; and the death of Fath 'Ali Shah II, as he would then have been, would in 1834 have marked the passage of a century of

brilliant Qajar rule, with almost a century still to come. But the "ifs'' of history are as empty air. Mohammad Hasan's head was conveyed to Shaykh 'Ali Khan, who sent it to Karim Khan at Tehran. Far from gloating, the Zand chief is in almost all accounts said to have regretted the demise of such a worthy foe who might have become a valued lieutenant; with his own hands he washed the gory trophy in rosewater and sent it to lie with the body at Astara-

bad.°

When news of the disaster reached Astarabad, Mohammad Khan Qoyunlu, who had

been left in charge, fled with the adolescent Agha Mohammad and the dead chief's other children to that old Qajar refuge, the Turkman of the Qipchaq Steppe. The Yukhari-bash prisoners who had escaped execution now freed themselves and were already looting and destroying the property of the departed Ashagha-bash when Shaykh 'Ali Khan marched into the almost empty town and its citadel. He stayed here a week or two to supervise the transfer of power and plunder from the insubordinate Yukhari-bash to the Zands, which necessitated a good many arrests and executions. Finally, by about the first week of March, the enormous Qajar booty had been transported to Tehran and Hosayn Khan Develu was left to administer Astarabad. Shaykh ‘Ali marched back to a triumphal welcome from Karim. °° Astarabad, scarred and depopulated, subject both to an epidemic that soon afterward ravaged Gorgan and much of Mazandaran and to attacks by the Ashagha-bash fugi-

tives oF was for a time left to fend for itself while Zand attention turned westward.

65. TGG, 87-88; GM, 49; RSN IX, 69-70; Rostam, 305. Ghaffari claims that the head was sent to the shrine of Shah “Abd 01-“Azim at Rayy; Rostam, to the shrine of the Emamzada Qasem, one farsakh from Tehran. Later Qajar tradition (cf. Mansuri, Khwandantha, no. 55, p. 28) credits Karim with sniffing the putrescent head with pleasure and avowing that there was no perfume so sweet as the smell of an enemy's corpse. 66. TGG, 88; GM, 50-51; RSN IX, 72. Hovhanyants (291) asserts that Karim Khan recalled Shaykh SAli from Astarabad for fear that he might rebel, an idea

which, in view of later developments (6.2), is not to be rejected out of hand. 67. RSN IX, 76.

5

Afghans and Afshars

5.1 MASSACRE OF THE AFGHANS

The past few years had been a ceaseless series of campaigns for the Zands, Qajars, and Afghans and their clients. Mohammad Hasan's propensity for prosecuting operations without a break right through the winter had been matched and finally exceeded by Karim and his generals, so that the early spring of 1759 found both victor and vanquished weary of war and anxious for a period of relaxation. Having recovered Esma'il III from Sari, Karim could again assert his authority with a regal Nawruz ceremony at Tehran.

There were still pockets of Qajar resistance to be cleaned out: no sooner had Shaykh 'Ali been recalled from Astarabad early in March and Zaki Khan sent to replace him as sardar+ than Rafi' Khan Qajar, the brother of the late Hosayn Khan, having gained support in or around Astarabad, marched out to meet Zaki's rela-

tively small relief force. Zaki managed to arrive first at Semnan and fortify the town, but was kept busy by this rebel apparently into the summer of 1173/ 1760. Future hazards could also be discerned: Azad Khan was still at large in Ottoman Iraq, canvassing allies in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan,” where Fath 'Ali and Shahbaz Khan were already in control of Urmiya. But the most immediate danger seemed to be that of the Afghans in Mazandaran. It has already been seen that over the twelve years since Nader's assassination the large Afghan and Uzbek regiments of his armies in every province had disbanded, some to join Ahmad Shah, who initiated the process with his march to Qandahar and rise to empire, others to swell the ranks of freebooters and would-be dynasts in Iran, notably their compatriot Azad. With Azad's expulsion from Azerbaijan in 1757, most of his men had sold their swords first to Mohammad Hasan, then at Shiraz or Sari to Karim Khan. Both their fighting contingents and their families were now in Mazandaran, their presence not only unnecessary after the Zands' successful recruiting in Fars and Persian Iraq and the subjugation of the Qajars, but a distinct embarrassment by reason of their previous record and continued fickleness. Karim's own Afghan contingent of some seven thousand or more, 1. So GM, 53; RSN IX, 72, gives Nader (sc. Nadr) Khan Zand as Shaykh “Ali's replacement. 2. GM, 53, 59; GD XI, 29 July 1760. Rafi* Khan was evidently won over to the Zand cause, as he fought for them at Qara Chaman (5.5). 3. MAE Perse VIII, No. 3; GD XI, 30 April 1760. 79

80 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-6é if Ghaffari's statement is more than a fabrication to justify the massacre, had taken to undisciplined looting and highway robbery, once the official fighting was over.” A final solution was needed. The course adopted was a large-scale continuation and completion of that already taken by Mohammad Beg some eight months before. Secret messages were sent

round to all Zand commanders and their allies with Afghan contingents in the field or cantonned among the population to have them massacred all at once on the forthcoming Nawruz. The affair was managed with great efficiency. In Tehran, where the court ceremony provided a ready-made pretext to have the unsuspecting Afghans file into the presence of Karim and his bodyguard, all were seized and killed.? In Mazandaran, 'Ali Khan Shahiseven was detailed to kill off the settled Afghans and Nadr Khan Zand those in the army of occupation. The latter bungled by letting Slip hints of his plan when drunk, and a thousand Afghans were able to fight their way out of his trap to Astarabad, where two hundred had already broken free of their executioners only to be driven back to the Gorgan River and butchered or drowned. © In Semnan, Zaki Khan massacred some nineteen hundred; only their com-

manding officer 'Ali Shir Khan managed to escape. In every other town where the residue of Azad's campaigners had settled, such as Qom and Kashan, they were taken and killed on the same day. In Kashan, Ghaffari relates, one Afghan was forewarned by a Zoroastrian friend who hid him for six months in his house and then smuggled him out of town in a trunk, whence he made his way to Azad at Baghdad. Parties were sent in pursuit of such fugitives; one khan was traced to Yazd, where he had fled after escaping the massacre at Tehran, and beheaded there. A head count of the Tehran victims alone yielded a total of nine thousand.° This operation constitutes one of the few stains on the Zand chieftain's record of exemplary humanity toward defeated foes. It can, however, be explained

as a military and political necessity already anticipated by the Qajars: now that they had served their purpose as mercenaries, the Afghans were an uncomfortable reminder of Nader Shah and a potential fifth column for Azad or Ahmad Shah. An element of pandering to national vengeance can also be discerned in Karim's action, which would be applauded by Shi'i Iranians of all tribes and towns who had suffered under Nader and who could now join with relish in hunting down any Afghans

4. GM, 53. S. Partaw-Bayza'i (60-61) recounts the following anecdote: one of these Afghans, a giant among his fellows, broke free and decapitated the headsman with his own sword, then, having attacked and scattered the Iranian guards, charged into the court where Karim was presiding and rushed through the cowering courtiers to the Vakil's throne. Karim waited calmly until the man was almost upon hin, then blocked the blow, wrested the sword from his grasp and lopped his head off. He then resumed his seat and continued with the audience as if nothing had happened.

6. MT, 323.

7. TGG, 89-90; GM, 54-55.

8. MT, 322.

Afghans and Afshars 81 who escaped the planned massacre. It may indeed be counted a macabre Nawruz gift

by the Vakil to his subjects.” 5.2 RECONNAISSANCE IN THE NORTHWEST, 1760

Summer brought in addition to the usual oppressive heat of Tehran an epidemic of plague or cholera, from both of which the Zand court retired to the yaylaq of Shemiran. As soon as the heat broke, Karim returned to his new base, which he

evidently intended to use for as long as it might take to subdue the rest of northern Iran. Tehran had not yet attained the size and importance with which the Qajars were to endow it, being in all probability considerably smaller than Qom or Kashan. But its rise can be dated from this period, when Karim Khan began to extend its architectural and other amenities so as to make it a fitting temporary capital. On his return from the Khamsa in the autum of the next year, 1760, he was able to move into a palace with an arg, gardens, and other facilities, which had been built in a very short space of time and was to form the nucleus of the later Qajar palace of the Golestan.?9 After a second winter in Tehran, Karim determined on an aggressive reconnaisSance into Azerbaijan. On 19 Sha'ban 1173/6 April 1760, he moved off into the Khamsa, advancing swiftly through Abhar and four days later through Soltaniya, on Tabriz. But Fath 'Ali Khan, who was at that time there with Shahbaz Khan Donboli, had prepared the defenses well; the Zand force, without heavy siege equipment, withdrew on 5 Ramadan/21 April to Maragha after a few fruitless forays over the Tabriz countryside. At Maragha the governor, Hajji Qasem Khan and his brother Hajji 'Ali Mohammad, opposed him with an army of local levies, but was beaten in a battle outside the town, surrendered, and was pardoned and reinstated. But other troubles robbed Karim of the chance of further operations from this convenient base. The Shaqaqi and Shahiseven tribes immediately to the east at Sarab and Hashtpar, who had tendered their allegiance on his progress to Tabriz, now rebelled. To protect his communications Karim had to detach a strong force to quell them. This he did, with the capture of large numbers of prisoners and livestock; but his position at Maragha seems to have been no longer tenable, for he then marched back to Tehran as swiftly as he had advanced.

9. Cf. Nava'i, Karim Khan-e Zand, 84. 10. TGG, 96; GM, 65-67. See below, 14.6 and fig. 4. 11. TGG, 97-99; GM, 56-59; Kuhmarra'i, 455; GD XI, 30 April, 29 July; XII, 18 November 1760. The chronology followed here is that of Ghaffari, since GD seems to confirm that this expedition took place in the spring of this year. Though both Persian accounts agree in the main on the progress of the operation, Nami places it in 1174, after Karim's summer vacation in the Khamsa, which forms Ghaffari's next section; Nami indeed states that Karim went to Soltaniya about Nawruz of 1173, but treats this as a vacation (TGG, 93). Since Ghaffari's account of the battle of Maragha (which Nami does not mention; see below, note 20) agrees With that of “Abd 01-Razzaq Beg Donboli, whose father took part, he would seem to be much the more reliable source for this period.

82 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 When the worst of the summer heat returned, and with it the epidemic that had already weakened his army , 1? the Zand leader left Tehran with his court on 6 Moharram 1174/18 August 1760 to spend the ‘Ashura at Shemiran. Five days after that, he set out once more for the Soltaniya region, where he arrived a week later and spent the next four months in long-postponed relaxation. He combined this with a general administrative review of his northern domains from this good central position. Kashan, which in the weak grip of the ailing Mirza Mo'izz o1-Din Ghaffari had fallen into anarchy, was placed under the control of the new governor of Isfahan, Hajji Aqa Mohammad Ranani, who had placed his wealth at the Vakil's disposal on the eve of the critical battle of Kamarej. Qazvin was placed under Mawla Verdi Khan Qazvini.° It was probably at this time too that envoys from the rulers of Ardalan and

Baban, as well as all the petty potentates along his route, came to pay their respects at the Vakil's summer durbar, with its adjuncts of exchange of presents and conferring of honors, hunting trips, a fair, and general overindulgence in convivial pleasures. /“ It was certainly during these latter that there appeared the first cracks in the smooth facade of Zand family unity (6.1). Early in December the Zand leader returned to Qazvin and Tehran for the win-

ter and to prepare a full-scale spring offensive against Fath ‘Ali Khan Afshar. In this, however, he was anticipated by his old enemy Azad. 5.3 THE BATTLE OF MARAGHA

On his defeat by the Qajars at Urmiya in the summer of 1170/1757 (4.4), Azad had

fled across the border to Ottoman Iraq, deserted by all save a few of his officers end men, including thirty of his Georgian contingent, and his immediate family.) Azad's large harem (which included the wife and others of the womenfolk of Ashraf Khan Ghalji, the second Afghan shah of Iran) was sent on ahead to be taken under the protection of 'Adela Khatun, a Shi'i lady who was the daughter of the previous governor of Baghdad, Ahmad Pasha, and the wife of the present one, Solayman.1© Friendly messages were sent from the pasha and a lodging was prepared for the refu-

gees. But on hearing that a Qajar envoy was already at the pasha's court, presumably negotiating for his extradition, Azad retreated to the hills of the Qarachurlu Kurds and delayed his entry into Baghdad for almost five months, until about 10 January 1758.27 Mohammad Hasan's overtures had evidently miscarried, for 12. GD XII, 18 November 1760.

13. GM, 60-65; cf. Ansari, 226.

14. TGG, 95-96. 15. MAE Perse VII, No. 104 (cf. Butkov I, 420). The Georgian commander, Zai Khan Kaplanoghlu, visited the French consul at Baghdad and, though he had

known le Sieur Simon, could give no news of his fate after the battle.

16. GM, 68-69. 17. MAE Perse VII, No. 104; SP 97/39, 1 October 1757, 14 July 1758; SP 97/40, 16 January 1758; cf. Hatt-” The fugitive Nadr Khan also returned, having gone only a few days' journey when Karim's messengers overtook him. All loose strands now seemingly tied, the Zand army left Tabriz with its siege equipment eleven days after it had arrived, to invest Urmiya.“? 5.6 THE SIEGE OF URMIYA

The army moved cautiously round by the southern shore of the lake, a detachment of fifteen hundred under Ebrahim Khan 'Amarlu riding ahead to secure the passes. By 2 Moharram 1176/24 July 1762 they were encamped within striking distance of Urmiya. Between them and the city lay undulating terrain planted with orchards; the lake

was some six farsakhs to the east, to the west lay a stream and up to fifteen farsakhs of cultivated and settled land, while on the northern side, only one hour distant, the rich plain was bounded by a steep escarpment. While he waited for the arrival of more and heavier cannon, which he had requisitioned from Hasan ‘Ali Khan Qajar, the beglerbegi of Erivan, Karim began to draw a loop around the town, which he would be able to tighten into a blockade. Shaykh 'Ali Khan and the troops from the Zand homeland, the Hamadan plains, were detailed to secure the side nearest the lake, 'Ali Khan Shahiseven and the Fars cavalry together with Rafi' Khan Qajar were to dig in on the western side, Torab Khan Nehavandi was to take the northern side while the Lurs and Kurds and 'Ali Mardan Khan Kuchek Bakhtyari, those most at

home in the mountains, took up positions in the foothills to protect his rear. Fath 'Ali Khan now led out a large body of picked men with artillery support before the Zands had finished these preparations and advanced on the main camp, according to Ghaffari, with cannon blazing. The Zand guns replied, their infantry held firm, and Shaykh 'Ali and the other khans led their cavalry in counterattacks.

A fierce assault on the Zand center failed, and Fath 'Ali retired grudgingly to the walls, where he held his own in skirmishes on foot--the broken ground being unsuitable for cavalry action--until dusk forced him to withdraw into the town. For the next three weeks the Zands were left to complete their siege preparations unmolested. Except, that is, for the marauding Yazidi, Balbas, and Hakari Kurds of the neighboring mountains; Nami remarks that their leaders professed Sunni Islam, while the rank-and-file were of various creeds and none. They helped their Afshar neighbors by mounting regular raids on the Zands and striking unexpectedly on their swift ponies at the men working on trenches and other services. At length, however, the town was encircled and a regular bombardment commenced. “7 A further sortie was made by Amir Guna Khan, who boasted that this would

39, Bakikhanov, 158 note, 162. 40. GM, 89-90. 41. GM, 90-95. 42. TGG, 105-6.

90 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 finish off the Zands. Together with one Aghvarlu Khan, he posted a picked band of snipers in ambush behind some rocks and then attacked the contingent of Mohammad Amin Khan Garusi in order to lead them into the ambush. His net was nearly torn by a bigger fish: Shaykh 'Ali Khan counterattacked and killed or captured many of the Afshars, who nevertheless drew them after as they fled back, then turned to fight, and sprang the ambush. Shots from side and rear cut down Shaykh 'Ali's men and his own horse, but he remounted, and Zand reinforcements arrived in time to rout the ambushers, many of whom were taken prisoner. > The length of the siege began to tell on both sides. The temperate summer of Azerbaijan gave way to the freezing winter, which Fath 'Ali welcomed as "the old graybeard on our side .""4 But the Zands had suffered winters in the open before, and against ‘snow and frostbite they built shelters of wood and rushes and stayed at their posts all winter.‘ Despite counterbombardment by eight big guns the Afshars had once captured from the Ottoman Turks,“ they tightened the blockade. Every day their own guns pounded the city walls from dawn to dusk, making little impression on the masonry but adding by their effect on the townsmen's nerves to the incipient sufferings of hunger and hopelessness.” When an attempt on Karim's life miscarried (6.1), Fath 'Ali's last hope was gone. Capitulation was urged on him by popular demand and the threat of treachery.” On the morning of 6 Sha'ban 1176/20 February 1763, after seven months under siege, he rode out with a few companions and humbly surrendered to the Vakil. He was received with honor and treated generously, as were the garrison and citizens when the next day saw Karim Khan's triumphant entry into the last stronghold of western Iran to resist him. 49 9.7 KARIM KHAN IN AZERBATJAN

On account of the hold he had retained on the central and southern provinces, with constant checks on the civil and military leaders at Kashan, Isfahan, and Shiraz, and the campaigns against refractory Yazd and Kerman contemporaneous with his Operations in the north, Karim Khan now found himself for the first time master of

all Iran, with the exception, that is, of the Afsharid state in Khorasan, which he was content to leave as a buffer against the Dorrani empire. The collapse of the Afshar confederation, following so soon on that of the Qajars, brought about a general shift of allegiances in Azerbaijan and necessitated some changes in the 43. GM, 95-96.

44, TGG, 106: 'Mara rish-safidi hast ke dar in awqat khwdhad rasid." Ghaffari (GM 101) quotes the same sentiment in the original Turkish as well. 45. TGG, 106-7; GM, 100-101; Fasa'i I, 203. 46. Kavianpur, 79.

47. GM, 101; TGG, 107. 48. Golestana (MI, 329) asserts that Amir Guna Khan communicated with the

Zands at this stage, offering to admit them.

49, GM, 102-3; TGG, 108; Kuhmarra'i, 457 (quoting a complex chronogram for 1176); Brteven 3015 (1765), 4. Most accounts give nine months as the length of the siege, which is too long if we accept Ghaffari's precise dating of the beginning and end.

Afghans and Afshars 91 administrative hierarchy, chiefly a replacement of fallen or doubtful figures by those who had demonstrated, or who now hastened to profess, loyalty to the Zands. Urmiya was placed under Rostam Khan Qasemlu, the son of Fath 'Ali's old rival Mahdi Khan.°° He governed until he was killed in 1181/1766-67 by a popular revelt in favor of Reza Qoli Khan, who was endorsed as governor by Karim Khan. On his death in 1185/1770-71 he was succeeded by his son Emam Qoli Khan, who had been taken to Shiraz as a hostage and was now sent to Urimya by the Vakil. During his twelve years of rule, Emam Qoli considerably extended Afshar authority in Azerbai-

jan: he is said to have received tribute from his neighbors of Sanandaj, Sauj Bolaq (Mahabad), Maragha, and Khoy. Although this could hardly have been a con-

tinuous relationship, it seems at least that the Donboli ruler of Khoy sought his aid against his Transaraxian enemies and that during the interregnum after Karim Khan's death he had designs on Persian Iraq. Emam Qoli Khan died in battle against the allies of 'Ali Morad Khan in 1197/1783.>The Donboli territory of Khoy and Salmas, like almost all other centers of the provinces peripheral to Nader's empire, had rebelled against excessive taxation--an increase from the traditional Safavid levy of 3000 to 100,000 tumars, demanded in 1744; and the Donboli khans, Mortaza Qoli and Najaf Qoli, had aligned themselves with the insurgents.” Continuing discontent with the Afsharid dis-

pensation led to unsuccessful revolts in Tabriz itself, in favor of the Safavid pretender, Safi Mirza, under both Nader and his successor 'Adel Shah .?? Azerbaijan had been in many ways the brightest jewel in the Safavid imperial crown: its beglerbegi was one of the highest salaried, it furnished the second highest revenue and the largest number of troops of all the provinces .>4 Tabriz, the center of a Turco-Iranian empire for almost three centuries under the Mongol I1-khans, the Qara-Qoyunlu and Aq-Qoyunlu, and the early Safavids, was ready to reassert its autonomy at least as truculently as Isfahan and Shiraz on Nader Shah's assassination. Like Isfahan, it was the bone of contention between ambitious local tribal khans and private armies spawned from the Afsharid debacle; as has been seen, Tabriz played host in turn to Ebrahim Mirza, Azad, and Fath 'Ali Khan Afshar in their attempts to channel local energies into imperial resurgence. The Donboli Kurds had acted as leading catalysts in these events ever since the fifteenth century, when their chief had supported Jonayd, the ancestor of Esma'il the Safavid? With the last of the Tabriz-based aspirants to empire removed, they were the 50. GM, 113; Kavianpur, 79.

51. Donboli, fajreba II, 254-55; Nikitine, "Les Af$4rs,'' 78-79; Dehqan,

384-86 (the last two both erroneously have “Ali Mardan Khan Zand for SAli Mordad). 52. See Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo, 176.

53. MI, 8-9; Kuhmarra'i, 485; Lockhart, Wadir Shah, 259. 54. Cf. Minorsky, TM, 161, 174; Tabriz/Azerbaijan is actually third in order of gubernatorial salary and second in revenue according to Minorsky's tables. Rostam (321) also credits it with the second highest revenue (after Fars, as in

TM); cf. table 1. 7 55. Donboli, Tajreba II, 41; Aqasi, 196-97.

92 The Struggle for Power tn Western Iran, 1747-63 obvious choice as Karim Khan's viceroys in this territory. Accordingly, Najaf Qoli Khan, who had served in Nader's army and governed

Tabriz with varying degrees of authority since his return in 1155/1742, was reappointed as beglerbegi. His uncle Ahmad Khan was appointed over Khoy and Salmas

and thereby presumably to the rank of iZkhani, or paramount chief of the tribe, in place of his brother Shahbaz. The latter, together with Najaf Qoli's young son "Abd o01-Razzaq, joined the Vakil's retinue to settle as hostages in Shiraz.°° There 'Abd o1-Razzaq began his career as a writer and Shahbaz ended his, of tuberculosis, on 21 Zu'l-Hejja 1187/5 March 1774. He was apparently well liked and generously treated by the Vakil, who married his son Abu'1-Fath to Shahbaz! accomplished daughter, Saheb Soltan Khanom. >”

Administrative continuity was further guaranteed by the reappointment as mostawfi of Mirza Mohammad Shafi', who had proved his loyalty on the fall of Tabriz. He was succeeded in Shawwal 1184/January-February 1771 by Mohammad Rafi' Tabrizi,

again by decree (or at least ratification) of Karim Khan.>® As kalantar, by popular request, Mirza Abu Mohammad was confirmed, as again in 1179/1765 and 1187/1773, on the recommendation of Najaf Qoli Khan.>” At Maragha, Mirza Khalil Maragha'i was appointed mostawfi during this same period, early in 1177/July-August 1763,

and confirmed in this appointment in 1186/1772-73, with an increase in salary .°? Once this necessary reshuffling had been done, Azerbaijan remained relatively loyal and peaceful for the rest of Karim's reign. There was one attempted coup by opponents of Najaf Qoli Khan in Tabriz: in about Shawwal 1183/November 1769, on the latter's return to resume his appointment after a visit to Shiraz, an envoy was

secretly sent to the Vakil to procure his dismissal in favor of his brother Shahbaz Khan. However, Shahbaz died before this could be settled, so Najaf Qoli was

left to continue what his rivals describe as his extortions for the rest of the Vakil's reign©! The Zand chief next moved on to the cooler summer climate of Khgy, where he granted Ahmad Beg Donboli the title of khan, together with his governorship, as mentioned above. Various rulers of the frontier mountain lands, who had tendered their nominal submission without appearing in person or making any practical contribution to Karim's campaign, notably Kazem Khan of Qaraja-dagh, now judgec it expedient to make their way with fighting contingents to join the Zand army .©2 A show of strength had to be made against certain elements among the Zands'

56. Donboli, Zajreba I, 87; Nader Mirza, 272. 57. Aqasi, 197 note. 58. Nader Mirza, 283-87 (copies of farmans). 59. Ibid., 268-71, 291-93.

60. Karim Khan, Farmans Nos. XX, XXI, B.L. MS Or.4935.

61. Nader Mirza, 270, 272. 62. TGG, 105; GM, 113; both sources add Panah Khan, but as Bakikhanov notes (162) he had already joined the Zand army before the siege of Urmiya. His son was recovered and sent to govern Qarabagh in the Vakil's name (13.3); Panah Khan

joined the retinue of hostage-guests in Shiraz, where he later died. His body was sent to Qarabagh for burial.

Afghans and Afshars 93 clients who posed a threat to Karim's commmications. Hajji Jamal Fumani, who lad retained his rule of Rasht under Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar, had died shortly before his Qajar overlord; his son, Hedayatollah, had then come to Tehran and had been well treated and promoted to khan by Karim. During the Zand involvement with Fath 'Ali he had slipped back to Rasht and deposed the Zand-appointed governor. After Urmiya Karim was able to detach Mohammad Hosayn Khan of the Zand Hazara with

a corps of twelve thousand horse; he defeated Hedayatollah and brought him captive to Urmiya. Karim fined him 12,000 tumans and spared him further punishment on the intercession of friends, contenting himself with the appointment of his cousin Nazar 'Ali Khan Zand to control strategic Gilan.°° The Balbas, Hakari, and Yazidi Kurds, too, continued to harass the Zand arny even after the fall of Urmiya, especially as the Vakil approached the Balbas' sunmer quarters near Chaldiran, within easy marching distance from Khoy. By this

time Fath 'Ali was sufficiently trusted to be sent on a punitive expedition against them with several thousand of his own men. He slaughtered many, demolished their houses, and took some three thousand prisoners and booty of tens of thousands of sheep and horses, all of which he dutifully handed over to Karim fcr redistribution among the army .o* It remains only to recount the ways in which Karim's most recent adversaries ended their respective careers. 5.8 AZAD AND FATH 'ALI: THE FINAL RECKONING

For two years, Azad had been living in comfortable exile at the Georgian court, and he must have realized as well as Karim that with the whole of western Iran now safely in the Vakil's power he had little hope of making a comeback. Karim therefore sent two Shamlu khans of some standing in the Transaraxian province, Mohammad Zaman Khan and 'Abd ol-Ghaffar Soltan, with friendly letters to Erekle and Azad,in-

viting the exile to an honorable retirement at the Zand court. Azad knew his old adversary as a man of his word, and accepted. He was seen off by Erekle with a personal escort and presents for the Vakil, to a welcome as promised and an easy end to his days as a pensioner of his former foe in Shiraz. He died some two years after his benefactor, in 1195/1781, and was buried in accordance with his will in his native town of Kabul. Ghaffari accords an appreciative epitaph to one who was a worthy rival to Karim: 'In contrast to Fath 'Ali Khan, he enjoyed a character polished to perfection by valor and embellished by exceeding chivalry, so that when he had bested the Zand generals and held at his disposal their baggage and womenfolk, he respected strictly the canons of honor and probity and displayed an uncnr-

promising and laudable zeal in regard to the fair treatment of his fair captives! 63. GM, 104-5. For subsequent events in Gilan, see below, 13.2. 64. MI, 329, 331; GM, 116-17. The figures given by Ghaffari are 50,000

Sheep and 20,000 horses. _ 65. GM, 111-12; the quotation refers to Azad's treatment of the captives

from Qal©a Pari in 1753 (3.4). See also TGG, 113-14; Kuhmarra'i, 457; Donboli,

94 The Struggle for Power in Western Iran, 1747-63 Fath 'Ali Khan was indeed, by most accounts, a contrast. A second-rate paraSite and opportunist for most of his career, his name a byword for oppression and extortion in Shiraz and Isfahan whether he worked for Ebrahim Mirza or Azad, he had come into his own after Mohammad Hasan's expulsion of Azad from Azerbaijan by

exercising a precarious hegemony over the other local khans. When he surrendered to Karim and sufficiently ingratiated himself with the Vakil to retain his status With relation to these same khans, they were naturally piqued and resolved to rid themselves of this dangerous sycophant .°° They may well have initiated a campaign of denigration even before the Vakil left Azerbaijan. Whatever the case, on arrival at Mizdej (one of the ''Chahar Mahall" of Isfahan province) on or about 24 Moharram 1178/24 July 1764, Karim had evidently decided to execute Fath 'Ali. As a pretext he asked the Afshar meaningfully where they were, reminding him when he hesitated how he had pitilessly pursued the small band of fugitive Zands with their leader and womenfolk over this very area in the days after the Battle of Qomeshah. According to Ghaffari, the Vakil was enraged by Fath 'Ali's flippant reply. ‘That was one day, this is another," and, though at first seemingly disposed to accept his apologies, summoned him again that evening and had him beheaded. He was buried in the shrine of Shah Reza at Qomeshah. His boon companion Jalil Khan Hamadani was executed the same night .°”

Nami's implication that Fath 'Ali was impeached and executed for treachery on trumped-up evidence with the complicity of the Azerbaijani emirs would seem an adequate summary of the case. Ghaffari's verbose explanation of a sudden loss of temper on the part of Karim Khan does not ring true. Karim's ready acceptance of the doomed man's last request, to spare his womenfolk and his sons Rashid Beg and Jahangir Khan and not to let them fall into the hands of the other Azerbaijani khans, is a further pointer to the complicity of these men. Furthermore, Ghaffari maintains that it was Azad whom Karim first summoned to work off his rancor over the memory of Qomeshah, but the Afghan excused himself as having been in Isfahan at the time and diplomatically referred him to Fath 'Ali, who had personally conducted the operations in question; thus, Azad, too, had a hand in engineering the demise of an unpopular ally whom Karim himself realized he had been mistaken to

Spare. Seen thus as a premeditated act of policy, the killing of Fath 'Ali Khan may throw some light on the spate of executions during this period which are to be discussed in the next chapter.

Tajreba II, 39; Butkov I, 246; III, 99. Golestana (MY, 330) says that Azad came of his own accord and asked Karim's pardon and that the latter provided him with an escort of fifty Zand-Hazara and an allowance of 360 tumans a month. Brosset (237) claims Azad was extradited. 66. TGG, 122; Bakikhanov (162) states that Panah Khan was involved in the

killing of Fath “Ali. 67. GM, 125-26 ("an ruzi bud va in ruzist.''); Gmélin, 398.

Part Two

Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79

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|_——_— Sia i,=a|Se q7 WiBudea : 3E i:« Jw. aad xif4 a|OE ae aaoS Woah \\eo aes Ae, oe =~. BT are .if ical .= Bn 5aay be w ' wt Ts L.Be fya L Ls Es 1.7ti.a*\N 25 =n vwot, ra aw 7-oe .ann aek ums we: N >,27h ee\aAte ae ae Miak.. 2rote ) ig \ tay eae we oa ba \Ay. ‘ae Ne ; watt ene ne Sl °gp FF 5 le 4 “. : uc W . he ws ye “7 gee b Brut a eT “e s “ ev] 2 ves PEs i a“ e \ : = Sa met ey eT | hy gales aa “$n Reet w se wed to LS WES 4 1% Ard : che iF.ssverses L5 2 The siege of Urmiya and the subjugation of the rest of Azerbaijan claimed Karim's immediate attention. When this was finished, he was allegedly turning his eye toward the Transaraxian provinces about Rabi' I 1177/September 1763, when news of Zaki's activities reached his base at Ardabil and persuaded him to take a more Serious view of this contretemps .>“ On arriving at Tehran, Zaki plundered Shaykh "Ali Khan's baggage, which had been left there in the care of his brother Nazar ‘Ali Khan, and then continued to Isfahan. Here for some months he behaved out-

wardly as a loyal and subservient governor, as if seeking a reconciliation: he helped in the arrest and mulcting of the Boghayeri fugitives who had deserted at Urmiya after Ebrahim Khan's execution, but used the loot gained to win support for himself from among the Isfahani nobles .>> As sardar of Persian Iraq, he could also legitimately vary his merrymaking in Isfahan with tours of inspection or extortion to the towns within his jurisdiction. ** It seems that Zaki's Bakhtyari friends in Isfahan now decided to take a hand

in this halfhearted mutiny and try to profit from a full-scale revolt. While Zaki was absent from the city, they forged an order from the Vakil to Zaki for the arrest and blinding of 'Ali Mohammad Khan Zand, then governor of Borujerd, and rep-

resented it to the latter as having been intercepted by them, his well-wishers, or repudiated by Zaki Khan on receipt, in order to alienate him also from Karim. "Ali Mohammad, convinced the Vakil's purge had reached out for him, predictably

joined their cause. Zaki returned to find his army of ten to twelve thousand Bakhtyaris and Boghayeris, reinforced by 'Ali Mohammad, in control of the city in 31. GM, 89; MI, 327. 32, GM, 117-18; TGG, 110-11. While at Ardabil, Karim visited the tomb of Shah Esm4°il, founder of the Safavid dynasty (GM, 117). 33. GM, 118. 34. TGG, 111; MT, 327.

Internal Dissenston 105 his name, having deposed and mulcted the civil governor Hajji Aqa Mohammad. Nothing loath, Zaki, who may well have engineered the coup himself, joined in the mu-

tiny and in three days had extorted 60,000 tumans from the long-suffering citizens of Isfahan.>> He was joined in person by 'Ali Mohammad when the latter had collected further support and loot from Tehran, Qom and Kashan. Zaki next sent Kazem Khan Bakhtyari and Nazar Soltan to secure Kashan, which for the past few years, now

that the elder Ghaffari was old and ailing, had been under the jurisdiction of Isfahan. Their Bakhtyari force camped outside the walls and began to bleed the town with requisitions, whereat old Mirza Mo'ezz ol-Din Mohammad Ghaffari roused

himself and organized a surprise night attack, which resulted in the capture of Kazem Khan and 180 of his men and sent Nazar Soltan and the rest scurrying back to Isfahan. Zaki swiftly dispatched 'Ali Mohammad with a large force to besiege the town. ‘Ali Mohammad occupied the dawlatkhana (palace) just outside the walls as his headquarters. This was retaken by Kashani musketeers, and 'Ali Mohammad had to move back one farsakh to the walled township of Fin, famous for its royal gardens, from which he made daily sorties to keep Kashan under blockade .~© 6.6 RECONQUEST OF ISFAHAN PROVINCE

By now Karim was convinced of the necessity to intervene personally before the whole heartland of his newly won empire erupted in rebellion. On 8 Rabi' II 1177/ 16 October 1763 he set off from Ardabil with an enormous retinue--computed by Ghaffari at one hundred fifty thousand--which included not only his original army and contingents from all the tribes and princelings of Azerbaijan who had submitted, but many of the conquered khans themselves and their families, as hostages for the loyalty of their tenuously held provinces: Fath 'Ali Khan Afshar, Kazem Khan Qaraja-daghi, Panah Khan Javanshir, 'Abd o1-Razzaq Beg, and Shahbaz Khan Donboli are the most familiar names among them.>/ An advance force under Mawla Soltan Zand and two or three Afshar khans was sent to relieve Kashan while the main body moved more cautiously into the Khamsa region, staying a day each at Khalkhal and Soltaniya. Zu'l-Feqar Khan Irlu Afshar was set over the Khamsa to secure their

rear. The Kashan relief force had meanwhile entered the town one midnight, and Mawla Soltan, inexperienced and impetuous, gave orders to attack 'Ali Mohanmad at Fin that same night. Mortaza Qoli, the veteran Afshar khan seconded to him, had to 35. TGG, 111-12; GM, 118-19; Tabrizi, 176a-b; MI, 330-31. Golestana assumes that the order from Karim Khan was genuine, which in view of the prevailing policy

is distinctly possible. SP 97/42 (74a) describes Zaki as having been "set up

against {Karim Khan] by four of his generals, Whom he had ordered to be imprisoned

at Ispahan for Misconduct.'' The four instigators referred to here may have been

the Zands “Ali Mohammad, Nazar Soltan, and Shafi~ (6.6) and Kazem Khan Bakhtyari. 36. GM, 119: 37. GM, 119-20; TGG, 113-14.

106 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-78 acquiesce despite his urgent pleas that they should first rest the horses. Accordingly, they charged at dawn, only to find that 'Ali Mohammad was already retiring on Isfahan with his baggage train first, covered by a strong rear guard. When attacked by the tired and disorganized Zand horse, this force routed them with the loss of eighteen men, including Mawla Soltan himself, and returned in good order with the eighteen heads to Isfahan. Karim Khan was informed of this fiasco when at Sava and hastened via Qom to Kashan, where he was welcomed by old Ghaffari, the only hero of the hour. Of the prisoners taken from 'Ali Mohammad's army, Karim released nine Bakhtyari and eighteen Ardalan Kurds. 38 However, news arrived from Isfahan that Zaki Khan, who could not be sure of meeting with the same clemency, had panicked and together with his family, baggage, Bakhtyari adherents, and a collection of hostages from the families of loyal Zands in Isfahan had fled in the direction of the Zarda-Kuh range and Khuzestan. Isfahan was now retaken without

difficulty.” Zaki halted his flight at Sardasht, on the western edge of the Zarda-Kuh foothills, where he fortified a walled garden for his baggage camp and withdrew with his main fighting force to the nearby village of Gatvand.”° Here he was overtaken by a force from Isfahan under Nazar 'Ali Khan Zand and 'Ali Khan Shahiseven, which took over as base a fortress two farsakhs from Gatvand. The next month or more

was wasted in daily skirmishes, both sides sparring uncertainly and ineffectually;~ Zaki perhaps hoped for a complete pardon if he did not antagonize the Vakil further, but was unready as yet to surrender, and Nazar ‘Ali had instructions from Karim to treat Zaki gently and only take him alive./7 Finally, Zaki launched a dawn attack on Nazar 'Ali's fortress, but it was too well defended; Nazar ‘Ali's countercharge under the walls of the fortress scattered the rebels and Zaki was forced to desert his base and flee with only three hundred men toward Hawiza. The rest of his men, many of whom had already deserted to Nazar ‘Ali, surrendered without a fight and together with the rescued hostages and the baggage were taken back to Isfahan.*? 6.7 ZAKI KHAN IN KHUZESTAN

During the decade since the Vakil's previous competitor, 'Ali Mardan, had sought allies among the warring tribes and urban factions of Khuzestan, continuing interand intra-tribal strife had produced some changes. Shaykh Sa'd of the Al Kathir had in 1165/1752 been ousted from power by his uncle Naser. "4 Mawla Mottaleb of 38. GM, 121-22. 39. GM, 122; TGG, 115; Kasravi, 152-53; Malcolm, 122.

40. Gatvand lies 25 km northwest of Shushtar, on the southern edge of the Sardasht district (see FJI VI, 310 and map). 41. GM, 129. 42. TGG, 125. 43. TGG, 115-16; GM, 129. 44. Oppenheim IV part 1, 53.

Internal Dissenston 107 the Mosha'sha' evidently took advantage of this to repossess the title and at least some of the authority of the vali of 'Arabestan. His doubly dispossessed predecessor Sa'd was imprisoned at Hawiza in 1167/1754," where he subsequently died or was killed by Mawla Mottaleb.*° Thus the latter, whatever his relations with Shaykh Naser, was in a state of vendetta with the immediate kin of Shaykh Satd when Zaki arrived at Hawiza late in 1763. Probably glad of an ally, he welcomed the rebel, and they arranged to march on Dezful from separate directions. The Al Kathir--already in revolt against the Vakil and emboldened by their recent defeat of Sabz 'Ali Khan Zand, the late sardar of Luristan--now joined Zaki's army, ostensibly to help secure Dezful. Zaki, intent on keeping as many Arab allies as he could so long as they were useful, ignored the vali's protests. 'Ali Mohammad and Shafi' Khan were sent ahead and persuaded 'Ali Qoli Khan, the governor of Dez-

ful, to throw in his lot with the rebel army. This guaranteed Zaki a secure base and further reinforcements, chiefly from the scheming Al Kathir. Zaki now decidec to identify himself positively with this tribe in their struggle against the Mosha'sha' chief, and one evening dispatched 'Ali Mohammad and Shafi' Khan Zand

with four hundred men, under pretext of a friendly visit, to seize the vali. Bursting into his tent, they killed his family and courtiers; but Mawla Mottaleb himself managed to reach his favorite mare, which stood saddled for just such an emergency, and took to his heels accompanied by a few gholams only. Zaki then took possession of all his property and sent 'Ali Mohammad Khan and Najaf Khan Kord in pursuit. The latter caught up with the vali two farsakhs from Shushtar, but the desperate fugitive felled him with a spear thrust. Najaf Khan's son arrived right behind him, shot down Mawla Mottaleb's mare with his pistol, overpowered the vali, and took him, bound hand and foot, to Zaki Khan. The prisoner, anxious to stay out of the hands of his blood-enemies, offered Zaki a ranson of 60,000 tumans, which he accepted with alacrity. This was duly deposited in Dezful, half in cash and half in jewelry, by the vali's mother at Hawiza. But the Al Kathir refused to be cheated of their revenge and acted promptly: Zaki was

forced to deliver his prisoner to his now hostile Arab allies, led by Far'un, Kati', and 'Alawan, the three sons of Shaykh Sa'd. They rode off home with their victim's head, followed by the rest of Zaki's temporary Al Kathir associates. The few Mosha'sha' supporters left were, of course, bitterly hostile to the Zand chief, and his erstwhile friends 'Ali Qoli Khan and the men of Dezful, disgusted with his treachery and seeing no further point in alliance with him, refused him entry to Dezful 47

4S. Ibid., 54 note 1 (citing the Tazkera-ye Shushtar).

46. GM, 130. 47. GM, 130-32; Nami (TGG, 123) merely mentions Zaki's alliance with the Al Kathir without any of Ghaffari's detail. Kasravi (153-55), following what would appear to be a slightly modified version of Nami, says that Mawld Mottaleb advanced to oppose Zaki and was captured and killed by “Ali Mohammad Khan. Goles-

tana (MI, 332-33) likewise describes this incident as a full-scale battle between

108 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-78 6.8 RECONCILIATION

Deserted by all but a few Luri and Bakhtyari tribesmen, threatened by hostile Arabs and unable even to find forage in famine-ridden Khuzestan, Zaki was obliged to return northward into the mountains of Luristan for shelter and support. 78 It was now early in 1764, and Karim Khan had reached Silakhur, where he recovered

from the severe illness mentioned above. Informed of Zaki's return to the hills, he sent a force of three thousand horse under Jahangir Khan and Nazar 'Ali Khan to intercept him. This they did in the region of Khorramabad, putting Zaki's band o= newly recruited Lurs to flight. Nazar 'Ali, anxious to make good his earlier failure, pursued his cousin westward into the Fayli hills and cornered him in the Posht-e Kuh region. Unwilling still to fight the fugitives to a finish and risk Karim's wrath if Zaki should be slain, Nazar 'Ali broke off the engagement and reported the situation to Karim. The Vakil, his patience running out, reinforced Nazar 'Ali and authorized him to remove the velvet glove in future encounters with the rebel. About the same time, he received a message from Zaki expressing contrition and pleading for pardon, but Karim was in no mood to respond. *” It seems likely that Zaki was prevented from surrendering personally to Karim by pressure from the Bakhtyaris and Lurs who had, from motives of their own, encouraged his defection and who could not expect the same degree of clemency as the Vakil's onetime favorite.>° When Nazar ‘Ali again brought Zaki to battle, however, many of the rebel's Lur allies must have realized their chance was gone and, as the Arabs had before them, quietly detached themselves. Zaki was heavily defeated, the majority of his army captured, and he himself, with 'Ali Mohammad, Shafi' Khan, and a few gholams,

fled as far as the frontier at Khanagqin. Without opting for a traitor's exile of uncertain safety, he could go no farther. He offered to surrender to Nazar 'Ali on condition that he should be allowed to go to Karim's court in person and as a free penitent to plead for pardon. Nazar 'Ali wearily agreed and rounded up Zaki's remaining supporters without further bloodshed. ”# He detached a force to shadow Zaki at a discreet distance as he made his way toward the Vakil's camp ,>“ where the rebel took bast in his half-brother's stable and was duly pardoned and

Zaki's men under “Ali Mohammad and the vali (indentified as the chief of the Banu Ka°b!), the Zand rebels being allied with the three sons of "Mirza Abu Taleb of Shushtar,'' whom the vali had killed. Allowing for the confusion of identity, Golestana's account of subsequent events accords Well enough with GM: like Kasravi, he would have the vali overcome by “Ali Mohammad in single combat and killed by his blood-enemies on being handed over by Zaki to Shafi~ Khan without “Ali Mohanmad's knowledge or consent, after ransom had been arranged. Similar accounts

are given in Tabrizi, 176b, and Tafrashi, 215a.

48. GM, 132; TGG, 124; Kasravi, 155; Malcolm, 122. 49, GM, 133. 50. TGG, 124-25. 51. GM, 133-34. 52. MY, 334.

Internal Dissenston 10S returned to favor.-” ‘Ali Mohammad, uncertain of his reception, had broken away from Zaki's band of penitents with only two servants and ridden madly to take asylum in the shrine at Qom; assured, however, of the intercession of Nazar 'Ali and Shaykh 'Ali, he was likewise granted a free pardon and restored to Karim's favor? So ended the only rebellion against Karim Khan by one of his own kinsmen. There seems little doubt that, though it began as a mere fit of petulant insubordination, Zaki's defection snowballed into a campaign of defiance that could have plunged Iran once more into the anarchy of the bloody interregnum from which it

had barely emerged. It acted as a barometer of the overall political climate independent of Zaki himself, revealing those personal and tribal elements that had acquiesced but grudgingly in the Vakil's hegemony and now found a focus for their disaffection. As such it goes some way toward explaining Karim's readiness to pardon Zaki--a cruel and headstrong character, but evidently not in himself a dan-

ger to his cousin--and to punish instead, with death, deportation, or a fine, those persons and tribes who had supported him for their own ends. 53. Ibid.; GM, 135; TGG, 126. 54. GM, 135; MI, 334.

/ Fars and the Central Provinces

7.1 THE BAKHTYARI

Having successively subdued the provinces of Persian Iraq, the Caspian coast, and Azerbaijan, the Zand chieftain turned his attention south of Isfahan, to the preeminently Persian province of Fars and the unfinished business of consolidating the territories immediately adjacent to his chosen metropolis, Shiraz. During his absence, his brother and lieutenant, Sadeq, had garrisoned the capital and retained the obedience of most of Fars by ad hoc punitive raids. The time had come to reduce the remoter environs of Shiraz, that is, Fayli Luristan, the Bakhtyari country, the Kuhgiluya, and Larestan, to the status of regular suppliers of revenue and manpower and reliable outposts for the subjugation of, and maintenance of commmications with, the lands beyond their mountain passes--these being Khuzestan, the Gulf littoral as far as Bandar ‘Abbas, and Kerman. In most cases a start had been made even before the Vakil's march northward in 1758, and this was systematically followed through between 1764 and 1766. The turbulent mountaineers of the central Zagros, the Bakhtyari, had long

sought to consolidate their influence over the adjacent plain, and their relations With whatever power controlled Isfahan were at best extremely wary. Under the Safavids the paramount chief of the Bakhtyari ranked immediately after the four

valis in the provincial hierarchy, | and, in the case of the latest 'Ali Mardan Khan, was an influential general who rendered sterling service to Nader Shah and came near to taking over the empire after his fall. As with the Zands, Kurds, and many other tribes, Nader had attempted to break the territorial power and halt the depredations of the Bakhtyari not only by incorporating a large proportion of their fighting men in his permanent field army, but by wholesale transportation of

tribal sections to the northeastern marches of his empire: thus, after suppressing a revolt by 'Ali Morad Khan of the Chahar Lang in 1736, Nader had resettled ten thousand families of both the Chahar and the Haft Lang around Jam, midway between Mashhad and Herat.”

With the death of Nader and the return of 'Ali Mardan they had asserted themselves anew. Karim Khan was careful, both before and after his final defeat of ‘Ali Mardan, to be conciliatory and even generous in his brushes with the

1, See Lockhart, Safavt Dynasty, 6. 2. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 110; cf. Perry, ‘Forced Migration," 209. 110

Fars and the Central Provinces 111i Bakhtyari (1.3, 1.9, 2.8). But they were evidently not disposed to forget that they had come within an ace of beating the Zands for control of Nader's empire in the west and, when in the course of 1176/1762-63, while the Vakil was occupied with the conquest of Azerbaijan, they took advantage of Zaki Khan's defection to seize control of Isfahan, Karim determined to emulate Nader's method of neutralizing this menace. Soon after he had retaken Isfahan and restored his authority there by a judicious distribution of punishments and honors, Karim moved off, probably early in spring 1764,> to the region of Shahr-e Kord at the edge of the Chahar Mahall and set up a base on the foothills of the Bakhtyari stronghold, the Zarda-Kuh range. From here strong task forces were sent into the hills, each detailed to a particular Bakhtyari group, with instructions to round up as many as possible of the eluSive tribesmen, without unnecessary bloodshed or looting, and to march them down to the plain below. This difficult task was accomplished and the various subtribes (tira) of both branches, each under the watchful eye of a squadron of Zand soldiery, were assembled on the Dasht-e Hamu and stripped of their arms, steeds, and other goods .4

Three thousand fighting men were incorporated in the Vakil's army. The rest were forcibly resettled, the Haft Lang around Qom and Varamin, some 350 kilometers to the north, and the Chahar Lang near Fasa in Fars, almost 500 kilometers south-

east of their ancestral lands. Their leaders, notably the Chahar Lang chieftain Haydar Khan, were kept in the army and later at Shiraz as hostages, but were pardoned their support of Zaki Khan and incurred no further penalties .° These measures appear to have subdued the Bakhtyari for the rest of Karim's reign; but, as with Nader, most of the exiles returned home in the anarchy ensuing on his death

to rejoin their fellows hiding in the Zagros and restore the tribal fortunes. Two tiras of the Chahar Lang, however, remained in the regions of Fasa and Kangan at

least until Fasa'i's time, about 1304/1887, retaining their characteristic black tents and Luri dialect.’ 7.2 FAYLI LURISTAN

The next people the Vakil sought to impress with the dangers of disaffection were the northern neighbors of the Bakhtyari, who under the vali of Luristan, Esma'il Khan, had been allies of 'Ali Mardan in each of his attempts to overcome Karim and the Zands. On the demise of the Bakhtyari chief, Esma'il had prudently

3. Nami, followed by Fasa'i, gives spring 1176/1763 as the date of this

operation. However, according to Ghaffari's detailed chronology (GM, 119), Karim did not leave Ardabil until Rabi~ II 1177/Qoy Yil/mid-October 1763 and thus could not have reached Bakhtyari country before the tribe's annual migration to winter quarters in Khuzestan. 4. TGG, 119-20. 5. TGG, 121; MI, 98-99; Bakhtyari, 480; Fasa'i I, 214-15. 6. MI, 99; Rostam, 380-81; Hovhanyants, 292.

7, Fasa'i I, 215; Bakhtydri, 480.

112 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79 accepted vassaldom to Karim and retained his rank among his people; however, his support of Zaki Khan on the latter's recent flight to Khorramabad revealed him as

an unrepentant opportunist. Soon after the Lurs had been defeated in the field and Zaki and 'Ali Mohammad surrendered, at the outset of 1765, the Vakil, only

days after recovering from a serious illness (6.4), mounted a large-scale punitive expedition against the Luri center of Khorramabad. That winter was especially cold: men and mounts suffered severely on the

march into the Fayli mountains, and several sentries froze to death at their posts during the night camps. Esma'il Khan seems neither to have tendered his submisSion nor made adequate preparations to resist, perhaps certain that Karim would not move against him in midwinter. Finding a large Zand army on his doorstep, he fled into the Posht-e Kuh mountains, leaving his family and possessions in Khorramabad to fall booty to the Zands. A pursuit force further robbed the fleeing Lur of his led mounts and baggage, but he himself escaped into the Posht-e Kuh foothills and the plains of Ottoman Iraq, where he attached himself to the marauding Banu Lam Arabs .®

Karim behaved with moderation in Khorramabad, taking a tribute (ptshkash) of a thousand sheep besides the booty from the possessions of Esma'til Khan and his immediate supporters, but not otherwise chastising the tribesmen.” He appointed as Vali of Luristan Esma'il's more compliant brother Nazar 'Ali Khan, backing this With other appointments of local men he hoped could at the same time command the loyalty of their own Fayli Lurs and remain content as vassals of the Zands . 19 But Esma'il Khan, a fiery and unscrupulous veteran still popular among his people, was

not to be ousted so easily. He returned soon after Karim's departure and, despite the Vakil's once more intervening to reappoint Nazar 'Ali, he could not destroy Esma'il's influence. On Karim's death he returned to full power and sent presents to Agha Mohammad Qajar at Tehran to ensure confirmation of his old rank under what he clearly saw would soon be the new regime. The eunuch king was, however, even

less willing than his predecessor to tolerate a strong hereditary ruler in Luristan, and Esma'il was the last of his line to play a noticeable role in Iranian

politics. 1 7.3 NORTHERN KHUZESTAN

From Khorramabad the Zand army moved south into Khuzestan to restore the order and allegiance disrupted by Zaki Khan. From Dezful Karim detached Nazar 'Ali Khan Zand with a force of cavalry to drive off the Banu Lam who, doubtless encouraged

by Esma'il Khan, were rumored to be preparing a raid. On Nazar 'Ali's approach, however, they decamped from their pastures on the Ottoman-Iranian border and 8. GM, 137-38; TGG, 128-29; MI, 99. 9. GM, 138. 10. Ibid.; TGG, 129; Saki, 304.

11. Ibid., 304, 305.

Fars and the Central Provinces 113 retired westward into the desert? Nazar 'Ali's disappointment was mitigated when on his way back he ran across a band of Al Kathir, chief allies of the exrebel Zaki who had led him a similar dance in the Fayli hills the previous year, now seemingly chastened and perhaps even on their way to make submission to the

Vakil. Nazar 'Ali nevertheless laid about them and plundered them of all they had. +4

The Vakil stayed only two days in Dezful, long enough to appoint local governors and exact reparations. He then moved on to Shushtar, to celebrate Nawruz of 1178/1765 and receive the homage of the recently unruly shaykhs. Further changes of administration were made here and at Hawiza, and a total of 20,000 tumans was exacted in reparations and "presents .'"14 Before the Vakil judged this province entirely safe, he resolved to impose his authority on the Banu Ka'b, who had risen from obscurity in the swamps of the Shatt ol-'Arab backwaters during the mutually debilitating strife of the Mosha'sha' and the Al Kathir to become powerful amphibious predators inimical to pasha and Persian alike. The course of Karim's expedition of April 1765, and of his other campaigns against the Ka'b, is best recounted later in conjunction with other events in the Gulf region (10.8); we resume this narrative with the Vakil's return to Fars through the Kuhgiluya hills in summer. 7.4 THE KUHGILUYA: FIRST CAMPAIGN

Before examining this expedition, we must glance over the background of Zand en-

tanglements in the Kuhgiluya, of which this is the culmination. Ever since Karim had first been driven back on Shiraz and Kazarun by Azad in 1752, this mountainous

area to the northwest of Shiraz had come to form the strategic left flank of the new Zand heartland of Fars, a vital center of communication to Khuzestan and, via the often unguarded "back door'' of the eastern slopes of the Zagros, to Bakhtyari country, Fayli Luristan, and Kurdistan. Throughout the thirteen years of his campaigns against Azad, Mohammad Hasan, Fath 'Ali, and the Zagros tribes, the

first half of which was spent largely with his back to the wall in Fars, Karim had constantly striven to retain his tenuous hold on both this region and its counter-

part, his strategic right flank of Lar. He first found the opportunity for a concerted campaign in the spring of 1170/1757, while Azad and Mohanmad Hasan Khan were limbering up for the battle of Urmiya. Leaving Shaykh 'Ali Khan to threaten--and subsequently retake--Isfahan, Karim himself set off on 8 Rajab/29 March on a punitive foray aimed first at the Banu Ka'b under Shaykh ‘Othman. the Ka'b got wind of this three days ahead and by the time the Zand army arrived at Dawraq had flooded the area and retired to a safe distance (10.7). Karim promptly opened the second phase of his campaign and

1Z. GM, 138; TGG, 129. For the Banu Lam, see Oppenheim III, 459-73, 13. TGG, 130.

14. Ibid.; GM, 139; MI, 334; Kasravi, 180-81; Fasa'i I, 215.

114 Consolitation and Expansion, 1763-79 marched on Behbahan, from which center the mountaineers had been defying govern-

ment officials ever since the death of Nader and had terrorized the foothills and the Karun valley between Behbahan and Ramhormuz. Blockading their Behbahan for-

tress, Karim sent a messenger with a gift horse and an invitation to negotiate under a pledge of safe conduct. This the bandit chief contemptuously rejected, having the profered horse soaked in oil and burned alive. Despite the intense summer heat, the Zands redoubled their efforts and at last carried the fortress by storm. The rebel leader was decapitated and the town given over to plunder.» A sum of 11,000 tumans was taken as indemnity. 2°

Continuing to the well-defended town of Jayezan, nine farsakhs distant, Karim invited the rebellious governor, Mirza 'Ali Reza, to submit peacefully and send

one of his sons as a hostage. His reply was further to strengthen the defenses, and the Zand army had to settle down to a long, hot siege of attrition for almost eight months. Some time during the winter of 1757-58 a local kadkhoda, scheming

to obtain the governorship for himself, treacherously let the Zands in. The captured governor was led before the Vakil in chains and beaten to death to disgorge his wealth--his victims and creditors in Jayezan striking the hardest.’ 7.5 THE KUHGILUYA: ADMINISTRATIVE REORGANIZATION

Karim then returned to Shiraz and for the next year was involved with the still intractable Nasir Khan Lari and with Mohammad Hasan Khan's second and more danger-

ous Siege of Shiraz. His subsequent operations in the north diverted him from the affairs of the Kuhgiluya till the spring or summer of 1173/1760, when he was reequipping his army at Soltaniya. He decreed a division of the region into two administrative districts, one of which, comprising the plains and foothills (zir-e kuh) dependent on Behbahan, was to be governed by 'Ali Reza Khan Qanavati of Beh-

bahan, and the other, the posht-e kuh or hill region proper, by Haybatollah Khan, the son of an old retainer of Karim's, Masih Khan Bavi from the Kuhgiluya town of Basht.28

Though his own tribe the Bavi were Lurs, the young man was too inexperienced

to keep the turbulent tribes in check, and the Vakil wisely seconded to him Mirza Zaher of Isfahan, a tough old retainer with administrative as well as military acumen. Together they set about ordering the province, until the wily tribesmen devised a way to divide and destroy them. On one punitive foray, Mirza Zaher was met with compliance and blandishments by the Lurs, who succeeded in tempting him

with offers of obedience and support to eliminate his young superior. During 15. GM, 24-26; TGG, 58-59; GD IX, 4 April, 9 July 1757. 16. GD X, 16 August 1757.

17. GM, 27-28. 7 oe, _

18. TGG, 93; Fasa'i I, 212. According to Mehraz (36), Mirza “Ali Reza and his family (presumably not the same person killed at Jayezan?) had been taken to Shiraz after the previous campaign.

Fars and the Central Provinces 115 their next colloquium, Mirza Zaher's brother surreptitiously produced a pistol and shot Haybatollah dead, and the Mirza took over supreme command. Karim Khan was not slow to learn of this skulduggery and to take measures to

punish the criminal. A body of horse was sent to arrest him and bring him to judgment before the Vakil, at that time in Azerbaijan. On their way, however, Mirza Zaher bribed his escort to take him via Shiraz and to call at the residence of the viceroy Sadeq Khan; here the miscreant was able to slip into the stable and take bast. After a good deal of flattery and promises of rewards to Sadeq, he was able to secure the intercession of the Vakil's brother and save his skin. 2? The Kuhgiluya tribes, meanwhile, reverted to their independent and predatory life. 7.6 THE KUHGILUYA: SECOND CAMPAIGN

There elapsed five years of campaigning and reorganizing in Azerbaijan and central Iran before the Vakil could return to the Kuhgiluya question. In this his campaign of spring 1178/1165, both before and after his advance on the Ka'b, he received the homage of all the tribal chiefs, urban governors, and headmen, with the exception of the Liravi tribe of Lurs .7° Centered on various stout and strategically located fortresses, notably at Khayrabad in the hills to the east of Behbahan and in the Kalat range, in a narrow gorge between the hills and the plain,?2 these rebels, according to Nami, had made banditry their traditional craft and sole means of subsistence. The Zand leader planned their downfall with the same methodical care he had applied to the Bakhtyari. From his base camp at Zd4ydan, on the plain just south of Behbahan, he made a general advance to throw a cordon round their fortress at Khayrabad. Using his own mountain-trained troops in a sweep to eliminate snipers and pockets of resistance, he drove the Liravi inexorably back on their fortress. This was taken by storm despite heavy fire, the defenders put to the sword, and their possessions given over to plunder 7? From here four separate task forces under Nazar 'Ali, Zaki, 'Ali Mohammad, and Bestam Khan Zand were sent to advance

from different directions on the remaining Liravi stronghold, which fell only after the defenders had slowly been driven back through three defense lines, every Step bought and sold with appalling casualties on both sides. No quarter was asked or given: any prisoners taken back to Khayrabad were beheaded there and their heads, claimed as 1,100 in number, built into a tower as a warning to survivors. Fighting men of the tribes who had submitted were enlisted in the Vakil's 19. TGG, 94-95. 20. GM, 144; MT, 335. The Liravi (GM ZLtiravt, TGG Leravi, MI Lilavt) are a branch of the Jaki Lurs, who had settled in the Kuhgiluya in two groups--the Liradvi-ye Dasht, centered on Bandar Daylam, and the Liravi-ye Kuh, south and east of Behbahan (see Bavar, 120, 135; Karimi, Joghrafiya, 187; Mann, Mundarten, p.

XVIII; Minorsky, 'Lur," EI, TIT, 41). 7 21. GM, 144; MI, 335. For Khayrabad, see FJI VI, 147; Kayhan II, 466 (map). 22. TGG, 137-38; GM, 44.

116 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 army and their families sent to Shiraz as hostages, following the usual practice. Other families too were forcibly resettled on lands in Fars, and their mountain home left under trustworthy governors .“> The excessive savagery of the treatment meted out to the Liravi would have passed unnoticed in Nader's time, but as the action of the normally moderate Vakil it merits a somewhat anxious justification from Nami.“ Many miscreants, he main-

tains, were pardoned, and had the Liravi not put up such a fierce resistance they would not have ended as a tower of skulls, which is sometimes a necessary example. On the basis of the accounts we have, this would appear fair comment; but its apologetic tone is distinctly reminiscent of other passages where Nami moralizes

in similar vein to palliate Karim's mutilation or execution of alleged conspirators.2> This latest action in fact brought to an end a six-year period which had seen a great many arbitrary and apparently contradictory actions by Karim: his regret at the death of his greatest rival Mohammad Hasan Khan, and his methodical mas-

Sacre of his latest allies, the Afghans; his generous treatment of Fath 'Ali Khan Afshar after a long and arduous siege during which the latter had allegedly sought his assassination, and his subsequent complete volte-face and execution of his guest, on a transparent pretext; his blinding of Shaykh 'Ali Khan, who was, after Sadeq, his most trusted lieutenant, coupled with a series of executions and mutilations suggestive of a witch hunt by a mad dictator--and his complete pardon of his petulant half-brother Zaki and the pusillanimous 'Ali Mohammad after their blatant and dangerous defection; and finally his comparatively moderate treatment of the Bakhtyari, Fayli, and Khuzestan rebels, followed by his Naderesque butchery of the Liravi. These are contrasts that cannot be completely explained by appeal either to political expediency or personal caprice. Obviously there are factors involved Which can never be known; it can only be suggested again that part of the answer might lie in the severe illness that prostrated Karim at Silakhur in the middle of this period and his (perhaps consequent) addiction to wine and opium. The very fact that the chronicler feels constrained to extenuate such base acts is itself

an indication of their rarity. The Zand army next moved with its booty and prisoners via Basht, Fahlian, and the Doshman-Zeyari territory”° toward Shiraz. On 2 Safar 1179/21 July 1765, a date chosen as auspicious by the astrologers, Karim Khan entered his capital after

23. GM, 45; MI, 335-36; TGG, 138-39; Fasa'i I, 215-16. 24. TGG, 138-39. 25. Cf. TGG, 108-9, 116.

26. I.e., the Mamassani Lur area south of Fahlian. On this occasion the

Mamassani apparently caused no trouble; they had already been raided by Nadr Khan Gai) and were to be "punished" by Ja°far Khan Zand in 1201/1786-87 (see Fasa'i I,

Fars and the Central Provinces 117 an absence of almost seven years and was not to leave again for the remaining

fourteen years of his life?’ 7.7 THE RISE OF NASIR KHAN LARI

Only now could the Vakil take thought concerning his strategic right wing of Larestan, larger in area and more fertile than the Kuhgiluya and dominating not only the inland route between Fars and Kerman but also the whole stretch of the Gulf littoral between Bushire and Bandar 'Abbas. The man who maintained this geographical expression as a political entity for most of Karim's reign, often constituting a direct threat to the Vakil, was Nasir Khan Lari. He began his career as Mir Shokr Nasir, in conjunction with his brother, Mir Shokr Hajji, during the unsettled period following the Afghan invasion and the rise of Nader. Extending their sway from the village of Ka178 in southern Lar, they took over a mountain fortress in the Sab'a region to the north and by.a process of organized brigandage soon came to control the whole province. Nader Shah on his accession contented himself with bestowing on both the title of khan and confirming their de facto governorship of the Sabta.29 Under 'Adel Shah, Mirza Abu Taleb was sent from Shiraz in March 1948 as governor of Lar and the Banader with a mere three hundred men as escort;>° within the year he was killed in a mutiny, which may have been engineered by Hajji Khan Lari, and the latter took over control of Lar in addition to the Sab'a. Success inflamed his ambition and, probably in the spring of 1163/1750, he marched with several thousand musketeers on Shiraz, which was then enjoying a precarious respite under Saleh Khan Bayat between the previous year's visitation by Fath 'Ali Khan and that of 'Ali Mardan yet to come. However, Hajji Khan died on the way; his younger brother Nasir Khan conCluded a truce with Shiraz and contented himself for the time being with Lar and the Sab'a.~!

Over the next four years Nasir Khan built up an army of fifteen to sixteen thousand men and extended his jurisdiction along the Gulf littoral, taking tribute from the Arab shaykhs of the various ports and affording his benevolent but sometimes expensive protection to the East India Company base at Bandar 'Abbas, where he was known, not unaffectionately, as "our Caun "2 In 1751, confirmed as beglerbegi of the Gamsir by a diploma from Esma'il III, he felt confident enough to lay claim to full sovereignty over Bandar ‘Abbas and sent a demand to the governor, Molla 'Ali Shah, for half the port's revenue. This was rejected, whereupon in January of the following year he netted the fortress, the fleet, and the governor

27. GM, 145; Kalantar, 63; Fasa'i I, 216. Donboli, Tajreba II, 42, errone-

ously gives Safar 1180. 28. Kal lies 118 km east of Gavbandi; see FJI VII, 182.

29. Kalantar, editor's introduction and p. 40. 31. Kalantar, 40-41; Fasa'i I, 205. 32. Brieven 2696 (1753), Basra, 7, 15; Ives, 201. 30. GD VI, 18 March 1748

118 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 himself in a surprise "visit," and appointed his own brother-in-law, Masih Soltan, as governor.”» In November 1752, however, commitments inland prompted him to re-

appoint Molla 'Ali Shah as being the most efficient and reliable candidate, and in October 1753, when the latter again showed independence by refusing to aid Nasir Khan against the rebellious Huwala Arabs, the lord of Lar was at first too concerned with observing Karim Khan, who was recruiting an army in the Garmsir against Azad, to challenge this stand. But a few months later he took over the port again, taking Molla ‘Ali Shah back to Lar with him and leaving a governor and garrison of his own. In the summer of 1754 Molla 'Ali Shah was again reinstated, having left his family as hostages in Lar.>" In August 1754 Karim Khan was on the defensive at Kazarun, expecting at any

moment an attack from Azad. As effective regent of Iran since the demise of ‘Ali Mardan and actually in control of the Garmsir, though as yet denied access to Shiraz, he summoned his vassal Nasir Khan to help.”> Nasir Khan preferred to ignore this, seeing Azad as the more likely winner of the contest; and when in the event Karim won the battle of Kamarej, he set off that same winter to teach his disobedient vassal a lesson. He postponed this project, according to the Gombroon diarist, on hearing a report (which later proved false) that Azad had captured Mohammad Khan Zand near Hamadan. However, Nasir Khan was chastened enough to pronr

ise to pay tribute.°° 7.8 LAR VERSUS SHIRAZ AND KERMAN, 1755-66

A month later, early in February 1755, Karim Khan marched into Larestan to enforce this, combining his slow advance with a general pacification of the Garmsir.>” While Shaykh 'Ali Khan marched along the northern boundary, through Darab, the Vakil moved roughly parallel along one of the southern routes, and both forces rooted out pockets of resistance and collected revenue with some severity. At Deh Fish, west of the city of Lar, Karim extracted an indemnity of 5000 tumans, but nevertheless ransacked the fort and executed the governor.>° However, prob-

ably as a result of stiffer opposition as he approached Lar itself, the Vakil seemed ready to compromise with Nasir Khan, who sent gifts of horses in exchange for a robe of honor and a diploma as governor of the Garmsir and Lar. They exchanged hostages, and all seemed settled until a mulla among the Vakil's advisers objected that Nasir Khan's hostages were worthless, whereupon Karim returned them and advanced to besiege Lar itself.°” 33. GD VI, 8 January to 7 February 1751; Brieven 2696 (1753), Basra, 16-17. 34. GD VI, 3 March, 29 June 1754; cf. Amin, 27, 28. 35. GDVII, 4 September 1754. 36. GD VII, 6, 8 and 12 January 1755. 37. GD VII, 5 and 13 February, 8 March 1755; TGG, 47. 38. GD VII, 16 March 1755. Deh Fish (or Deh Pish; "Dapeichey" in GD) is in Juyom, on the way to Bidshahr; see FJI VII, 49, 109; Fasa'i II, 181-182. 39, GD VII, 22 March, 3 and 11 April 1755.

Fars and the Central Provinces 119 The siege was pressed against the impregnable fortress without success over the last two weeks of April 1755. Karim requested 2000-3000 man of gunpowder and lead from the factory at Bandar 'Abbas, apparently in vain, and in one assault lost as many as a thousand men by Nasir Khan's assessment." The unwonted heat of the Gulf foothills told on his Farsi mountaineers, so that a truce was again patched up; Nasir Khan paid tribute of 4000-5000 tumans, and on 2 May the Zand

army set off back to Shiraz." During the next three years, while he remained at Shiraz with a wary eye on the struggles of Azad and Mohammad Hasan in the north, Karim contrived to keep up the pressure both on the Kuhgiluya tribes and on Lar. In the summer of 1755 he sent 'Ali Khan Shahiseven to contain Nasir Khan's encroachments on the Gulf littoral, which he did with the help of some recruits from among the local Arab

tribes, “7 then requisitioned 4000 rupees' worth of cloth as a present for the Vakil from Molla 'Ali Shah and the East India Company at Bandar "Abbas. By October he was besieging Lar itself,“ though apparently without result; and the last heard of this particular sardar of the Garmsir is a report from Nasir Khan in March of the next year saying that he had been defeated by Kamal Soltan of Bidshahr. 7?

No sooner was the pressure off from one side than Nasir Khan had to deal with a threat from another quarter. In 1754 he had taken advantage of an appeal for help against a rebel from Shahrokh Khan, governor of Kerman, to attempt to seize the city of Kerman, but had been defeated and pursued back to Lar (8.1). Shahrokh Khan continued to vent his indignation by periodic raids on Nasir Khan's frontier around Hajjiabad and vied with the Vakil and the Lar chief in his requests for powder and bombs from the company's agent at Bandar ‘Abbas, as in May 1756, when,

having defeated an army of Nasir Khan's, he held Hajjiabad under siege.“° In July of the same year, however, Nasir Khan considered it a golden opportunity to retaliate against Karim Khan at least, when Mohammad Hasan Khan, advancing from Isfahan, invited the khan of Lar to join him in besieging Shiraz (4.5). Nasir Khan at once set out with as large a force as he could muster and a present of 60,000 rupees for the Qajar chief.*7 Unfortunately, Mohammad Hasan raised the Siege hurriedly after only a few days on hearing of Azad's march on Isfahan, and Nasir Khan, without having reached Shiraz, fell back on Darab .® In October he sought to make capital of a revolt by Karim's levies in the 40. GDVII, 16 and 26 April 1755. 41. GDVII, 10 May; Brieven 2755 (1756), 70; 2756 (1756), Kharg, 48-49; Ives,

201; TGG, 49.

42. GD VIII, 2 August 1755. 43. GD VIII, 3 and 4 September 1755; Lorimer, 100. 44, GD VIII, 21 October 1755. 45. GD VIII, 16 March 1756. 46. GD VIII, 9 May 1756. 47. GD VIII, 20 July 1756. 48. GD IX, 7 August 1756.

120 Consolidatton and Expansion, 1763-79 Dashtestan, but they were defeated by Shaykh 'Ali Khan before he could lend effective help. The Dashtestanis were obliged to pay the Zands an indemnity of 3000 tumans and to furnish a fighting contingent of two thousand men. Similar conditions were now imposed on various Gulf shaykhs who fell under the authority of the the expanding Zand state in Fars, each paying cash and contributing troops according to his capacity: the shaykh of Bushire, for example, remitted 2000 tumans .79 By April 1757 Karim had secured the whole of the Kuhgiluya and Dashtestan, including Bandar Rig and Bushire, and was encroaching steadily on others of the Gulf shaykhdoms that had formerly been vassals of Nasir Khan. So while over the next month the Vakil turned his arms westward to tackle the Banu Ka'b, Nasir Khan took on the task of recovering his defected protégés.-” He even attempted an invasion of the Shamil region, northeast of Bandar 'Abbas; but on Karim's return from his Khuzestan and Kuhgiluya expeditions in August he retired to Lar and bought peace for a tribute of 5000 tumans, a contingent of two hundred soldiers and a hostage >! Mohammad Hasan's second siege of Shiraz in the spring of 1758 (4.6) again brought Nasir Khan with two thousand men hastening to share in the pickings; and for the second time he scuttled quietly home when the Qajar chief was again forced

to raise the siege before his ally arrived.” When Karim set off in September for Tehran, he detailed Mohammad Vali Khan with a force of four thousand men to chas-

tise Nasir Khan. This force apparently took the most northerly route, striking at the Kerman-Bandar 'Abbas highway and plundering, among other things, a caravan from Kerman worth 40,000 rupees, In October Nasir Khan sent a detachment to guard

the passes near Hajjiabad, but this was defeated and the commander killed, so that Nasir Khan had to fall back on his fortress at Lar.?> Even the shaykh of Minab, who had spurned demands for tribute from 'Ali Khan Shahiseven, now found it prudent to levy 30,000 tumans from his subjects to buy off Mohammad Vali Khan as he marched purposefully southward.>* The company's agent also sent a propitiatory present, but in the event Mohammad Vali Khan retired without attacking Bandar

‘Abbas or, it seems, attempting to take Lar.” 49, GD IX, 11, 20 and 25 October, 2 November, 10 December 1756; 9, 11 and 29 January 1757.

50. GD IX, 4 and 26 April 1757. ° 591. GD X, 27 August 1757; Lorimer, 101. The hostage was evidently his son, Ali Khan, who about this time led the Lari contingent in a Zand expedition against Taqi Khan Bafqi of Yazd (8.2). As revealed in a letter home from one of the Lari officers, the contingent was poorly outfitted and supplied, and many were awaiting an opportunity to desert; “Ali Khan was in bad odor with Karim Khan, who correctly suspected him of wishing to engineer a coup at Shiraz, where the Vakil was as yet insufficiently established (Eqtedari, 281-89). The letter is apparently not dated, and Eqtedari attributes it to the year 1179/1765-66, after Nasir Khan had been defeated and replaced by Masih Khan as governor of Lar. The mention of Taqi Khan and other internal evidence, however, suggest 1757-58. 52. TGG, 145. 53. BP XXI, 27 December 1758.

54. Lorimer, 100, 101. 95. Amin, 43 (citing BP XXII, 2 May 1759).

Fars and the Central Provinces 12t During Sadeq Khan's tenure of Shiraz, the khan of Lar continued his depredations virtually unchecked. At the end of 1760 a truce was concluded whereby the Zands in effect relinquished their territories immediately to the west of Lar, acknowledged Nasir Khan as ruler of the Garmsir, and provided a hostage, in exchange for Nasir Khan's paying an annual tribute of 2000 tumans, providing a hundred jazayerchis for the amy, and leaving his brother Ja'far Khan at Shiraz.>° This did not appear to stop Lari bandits from raiding villages quite close to Shiraz

and retiring into the hills, where Sadeq dared not risk his limited garrison in pursuit.°” In the summer of 1762, however, a force of a thousand Zands or Dashtestanis did succeed in driving Nasir Khan back into his stronghold of Lar, taking some of his artillery and killing about two hundred of his men, mainly Arab allies .°8 7.9 THE FALL OF LAR

Nasir Khan's final reckoning came on the Vakil's return from Azerbaijan. Rejecting his renewed overtures of peace and offers of troops, Karim dispatched Sadeq Khan, still beglerbegi of Fars and now freed from the restrictions imposed by his having had to garrison Shiraz, to reduce the fortress of Lar once and for all.” Soon after Nawruz 1179/1766, he took the town of Lar without much difficulty and laid Siege to Nasir Khan's fortress on one side of the town at the foot of the hills. This was linked by a covered trench or gallery to a second fortress on top of the hills overlooking the town, where an elite garrison not only defended their own stronghold but commanded the besiegers' approaches to the fort below. Only four days of the siege had elapsed, however, before a deserter showed Sadeq's men a secret path up the hill behind the strongpoint. That night, while the besiegers made a diversionary attack on the fortress below, a raiding party was sent up and surprised the garrison. Despite the hasty arrival of a relief troop under Nasir's brother, the Zands seized the strongpoint and informed their comrades below of their success by means of signal fires. Nasir Khan now came under fire from his own batteries on the hill as well as those of the Zand army and the town; nevertheless, he fought on determinedly until, his fortress shattered and supplies running out, his men mutinied, and he was forced to send his brother to sue for terms .°°

This spelled the end of Nasir Khan's power in Lar. Sadeq respected the terns agreed and kept his men from killing or looting; both forts were demolished and Nasir Khan and his family and dependents were taken back to Shiraz, where they 596. GD XII, 7 January 1761. 57. GD XII, 28 May 1761.

28. GD XII, 23 and 30 June, 20 July 1762. 59. TGG, 146. 60. TGG, 147-49; GM, 150-51; Fasa'i I, 216; Rostam, 373-74 (giving the names

of Nasir Khan's sons as Mohammad and “Abdol1ah) .

122 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 were treated generously as hostage-guests. The government of Lar was given to Masih Khan, a cousin of Nasir Khan, who seems to have justified the trust placed in him for the rest of Karim's reign. After some time in Shiraz, Nasir Khan pre-

vailed upon the Vakil to restore him to his old position at Lar; but on his entry into the area he was stabbed to death by a local kadkhoda who may have been in the pay of Masih Khan. °2

In his Kuhgiluya campaigns, the Vakil had been subjugating isolated tribal groups who occasionally withheld taxes and molested merchants between Shiraz and the coastal ports of Bushire and Bandar Rig. With Nasir Khan, however, he was pitting himself against a regional dynast whose state in eastern Fars was already more firmly established than Karim's own metropolitan region of Shiraz and western Fars. Nasir Khan relied on a standing army rather than seasonal tribal levies and enjoyed a considerable income from agricultural taxes and from customs dues, road tolls, douceurs, and other protection money stemming from the brisk trade between Kerman, Shiraz, and Bandar 'Abbas. This was supplemented by raids on tribes with summer pastures in western Fars (and thus under Zand protection) who wintered on the coastal plain of Lar. ©? The subjugation of Lar gained revenue, manpower, and flank security for the Vakil's proposed inclusion of Kerman and Bandar ‘Abbas in the Zand empire. 7.10 ZU'L-FEQAR KHAN AFSHAR

There remains an isolated case of provincial rebellion by a tribal leader already tried and trusted in government, which, though it took place six or seven years later, may conveniently be treated here. It will be remembered that Zu'l-Feqar Irlu Afshar was appointed to govern Soltaniya and the Khamsa province during Karim's advance southward from Ardabil

late in 1763. Apparently he remained an indifferent vassal until about 1186/1772, when his regular tax remittances were noticeably behind schedule .°9 Reports from travelers and spies confirmed the Vakil's suspicions that he had in mind a more independent existence, perhaps encouraged by the success of Hosayn Qoli Khan Qajar, who at this same time had broken free of Zand control in Mazandaran. Karim accordingly summoned him to give an account of himself. Zu'l-Feqar instead sent his son, who cleverly played for time with bland assurances that Zu'1-Feqar was much maligned and misunderstood and would certainly appear in person as soon as he had a leisure moment from his arduous duties. When this game had been repeated once 61. TGG, 149-50; Fasa'i I, 216. Nasir Khan's descendants retained control of Lar and its dependencies until 1275/1858, when successive governors general of Fars deposed Nasrollah Khan Lari and appointed their own governor (Fasa'i I, 318me oo, TGG, 146. 63. GM, 171.

Fars and the Central Provinces 123 or twice, the Vakil grew impatient and resolved on purposeful action.°” Two separate forces of about four thousand men each were sent out under 'Ali Mohammad and 'Ali Morad Khan Zand, the former to march by way of Hamadan province

and the latter to swing round through Qom and Sava. Since ‘Ali Morad delayed in order to levy local reinforcements, it was 'Ali Mohammad's army that arrived first within striking distance of Zu'l-Feqar's forces advancing from Zanjan. They met in battle near Abhar, and though the Afshar khan and his tribesmen charged ‘Ali Mohammad's center with such vigor that it was soon torn open, their Shaqaqi allies on the wings and in the rear wilted before determined counterattacks; his whole army fell apart and he himself was forced to flee. He was overtaken and captured two farsakhs away by Sabz 'Ali Soltan Baluch and a small pursuit party. ‘Ali Morad Khan arrived next day when it was all over and had to be content with accompanying the victor to Zanjan to secure Zu'l-Feqar's property and help escort

their prisoner and his family to Shiraz.°° Through the intercession of his mother and the habitual generosity of Karin, he was granted a free pardon and even reinvested with his governorship together With a robe of honor. This time, however, his family and dependents were kept in Shiraz. °°

64. TGG, 169. According to Ghaffari (GM, 172) and Reza Qoli Khan (RSN IX,

83), it was the mother of Zu'l-Feqar who interceded for him, as again after his capture.

65. TGG, 169; GM, 172; Tafrashi, 217a-b; the latter has Mohammad Ssoltan Baluch. Rostam (379) has a more colorful version of Zu'l-Feqar's capture according to which “Ali Mohammad met the Afshar in single combat, "struck his sword against that of Zu'l-Feqar and sliced it in two like a cucumber," then snatched his adversary's lance, felled his horse with it, dismounted, and trussed him up to take back to Shiraz. He adds that Zu'l-Feqar later rebelled again and was again pardoned and reinstated. 66. GM, 172; RSN IX, 84-85.

5 Kerman and Yazd

8.1 BEFORE KARIM KHAN

The city and province of Kerman has a tradition of quiet but dogged independence in the face of any tendency toward centralized rule in Iran and would appear to be

fortunately situated off the major routes of invasion. This very isolation, however, attracted fugitives who brought vengeful pursuers down upon the whole city, and its commercial prosperity invited attacks on its trade routes. Both these dangers were repeatedly evident during the cycles of empire and anarchy of the Seljuk, Mongol, Timurid, late Safavid, and Afsharid-Zand periods, culminating in the terrible visit of Agha Mohammad Qajar in 1794 (see epilogue). During the period that concerns us here, Kerman, and to a lesser extent Yazd, which is roughly equidistant from Kerman and Isfahan and hence subject to the rival influences of both, showed a stubborn resolve to live a life of its own; and Karim Khan, once he had subdued the western and central provinces, manifested a like determination to maintain control of these his eastern marches, bordering on the Afghan-subsidized State of Shahrokh Shah. At the end of Nader's reign the governor of Kerman, Mo'men Khan Bafqi, was ousted by an Afshar, Shahrokh Khan, whose family had held the province more or less continuously since his great-great-grandfather, Vali Khan, had received the post from Shah 'Abbas the Great. He added Yazd and Abarqu to his domains, and on "Adel Shah's accession went through the motions of homage. The Afsharid ruler and his successors were too involved with internecine struggles to enforce their authority.! When Shahrokh Shah in 1748 sent him a demand for revenue along with a confirmatory diploma and a robe of honor, Shahrokh Khan protested that Kerman had been so devastated by Nader that it would be incapable of-yielding any taxes for the next thirty years--an excuse with which the puppet king and his wrangling masters had to rest content. 2 That there was some truth in this plea can be seen from sundry asides on the ruined state of Kerman at this time made by the East India Company's representative. In October of 1747 a band of three thousand marauding Afghans was diverted from the town by a show of force, but the following day an estimated fifteen 1. GM, 73-74; TGG, 90; Vaziri, 316; GD VI, 30 April 1748. When referring to the city of Kerman, as opposed to the province, Vaziri uses the older name Govashir (see Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caltphate, 303).

2. Vaziri, 317.

124

Kerman and Yazd 125 thousand "Ophgoons and Tartars'' defeated the governor and his officers a few miles from the town; they then overran the Zoroastrian quarter outside the city walls and looted everything there, including the company's house, for the next six days. However, they failed to scale the walls and finally withdrew, "leaving the Gabbers' Parish [the Zoroastrian quarter] quite Depopulated and a probability of Famine to Ensue." Kerman was again plundered soon afterward and, even when external foes were absent, was continually at the mercy of the undisciplined and extortionate soldiery who were supposedly defending it, and was virtually isolated from Bandar "Abbas by marauding bands of demobilized Bakhtyari and other fragments of Nader's army .* By early 1748 the famine was so acute that "Humane Fleshe; and that of Dogs, Cats and other Unclean animals [was] sold in the Publick Market by License," and people were reputedly snatched from their beds at night for food.” About the same time, Yazd and district was raided by a small band under Allahyar Khan Afghan® Nevertheless, Shahrokh Khan was at least able to make political capital out

of this spate of anarchy. In the summer of 1750 a popular rising ousted the inefficient sardar, Mohammad Reza Beg, who had been appointed by Ebrahim Mirza from

Isfahan and was seeking to mount an expedition against the triumvirate in power there. a From now on Shahrokh Khan could rule independently. In 1164/1751 he marched to meet an army of five thousand Sistanis and Baluchis advancing through Bampur on Bam and at Chehel Tokhm, a mile or so outside Bam, decisively defeated them, inflicting about a thousand casualties and gaining many camels and weapons as booty. He followed up by subjecting most of Sistan to his authority, exacting homage, tribute, and auxiliary troops. In April 1754 Kerman was the object of a series of raids by Mo'men Khan Bafqi, the former governor. Shahrokh Khan appealed for help to his powerful neighbor, Nasir Khan Lari, who duly set off with eight thousand men in May.” On Shahrokh Khan's instructions he was welcomed and assisted with reinforcements by the governors of the towns on his route such as Darab and Baft, and he sent his nephew ahead to meet the Kerman governor. Quite unsuspecting, Shahrokh Khan met the lord of Lar at Narp, a village some fifteen miles south of Mashiz, where Nasir Khan,

._8

3. GD VI, 20 and 27 October 1747. 4. GD VI, 26 October, 12 December 1747. S. GD VI, 2 March 1748.

(1.1).

6. Zarrabi, 211-12. Allahyar Khan had already been driven from Isfahan 7. GD VI, 18 August, 10 September 1750.

8. Vaziri, 317-18.

9, GD VII, 10 September 1754. Vaziri's account (318-20), which is followed

here in regard to details of this campaign, gives a different motivation: Nasir

Khan was, it is claimed, acting on Karim Khan's orders to conquer Kerman, but pretended to seek an accommodation with Shahrokh Khan in order to capture him. Since Karim was at this time recruiting in the Fars Garmsir against an expected attack by Azad from Isfahan and had himself appealed in vain for the help of his nominal

vassal Nasir Khan (3.7), it is most unlikely that the latter was acting other than

independently; and Shahrokh Khan's apparent welcome of him seems to indicate that he thought of him as ally rather than enemy.

126 Consolidatton and Expanston, 1763-78 after providing a banquet, bound his guest hand and foot and sent a demand to Kerman for 10,000 tumans ransom. When this was refused, he marched his army, which consisted mainly of infantry, the sixteen farsakhs to Kerman in two days; but despite his speed and his hostage he was met with such determined resistance from the slingers and musketeers manning the walls that thirty of his men were killed

in the first assault and he was obliged to settle down to a regular siege. 1 Reza Qoli Khan, Shahrokh Khan's governor of Zarand, attempted a night raid on

the Lari camp to rescue his overlord. He struck too late, a mere two hours before dawn when Nasir Khan's men were at their posts, and was beaten off. But daily sorties from Kerman took their toll of men and mounts, and the besiegers began to run short of supplies. The final blow came when Shahrokh Khan managed to bribe his guards and escape back to Kerman; since every last trace of his scheme had now foundered, Nasir Khan beat a disgruntled retreat, harassed by the Kermanis ail the

way into his own territory as far as his fortress of Gerash, three farsakhs west of Lar. Here he went to ground while Shahrokh Khan and his men plundered Hajjiabad, Tarom, and Shamil in the Sab'a region between Lar and Kerman, before returning home. That same summer Ahmad Shah Dorrani established control over Mashhad and con-

firmed Shahrokh Khan as governor of Kerman. He reciprocated with a present of 1000 tumans hastily scraped together from the citizens .14 However, further raids on the Kerman district by Rostam Khan (a kinsman of Shahrokh Khan), by Mohammad Reza Khan and by Taqi Khan Bami, a popular local chieftain, prevented Shahrokh

Khan from extending his sway and contributed to a drop in his popularity within Kerman itse1f. Yazd was now able to break free of Kerman under one Taqi Khan Bafqi, who had previously served as mostawfi of Yazd under the less grandiose appellation of Mirza Taqi and had profited by the struggles between Karim, Azad, and Mohammad Hasan Khan in central Iran to rise by dint of time-serving and underhand dealing to become self-styled governor, confirmed by whichever of the contestants held the region for the price of a temporary and nominal homage 1° His career began toward the end of 1754, after Azad's defeat at Kamarej and retreat from Fars. Azad's appointee to Yazd, Mohammad Amin Khan, who had virtually ruined the city by

enforcing his master's demands for a levy of 50,000 tumans , 24 fied likewise; and Rafi' Khan ‘Arab ‘Ameri, who had held the area round Biabanak against Azad, marched to take over the abandoned town. The townsfolk, however, headed by Taqi Bafqi, successfully defended the town until Rafi' Khan was hit by a sniper's bullet and his army retired. Taqi Khan, as he now styled himself, remained in power for the next four years, proving hardly less oppressive than any previous governo10. GD VII, 10 September 1754; cf. Brieven 2755 (1756), 39 (20 December 1754). 11. GD VII, 11 August 1754, 13 April 1755. 12. GD VII, 10 September 1754; VIII, 19 August 1755; GM, 67, 74; TGG, 91. 13. GM, 41; TGG, 75-76; GD IX, S August 1756. 14. GD VII, 17 September 1754; cf. Brieven 2755 (1756), 39.

Kerman and Yazd 127 and, like Shahrokh Khan in Kerman, accumulating a store of ill will among both

subjects and neighbors that was to be his undoing. 8.2 TAQI KHAN BAFOT AND KHODA MORAD KHAN ZAND

According to Nami, Karim Khan once dismissed and imprisoned Taqi Khan and muicted

him of 12,000 tumans, but sympathizers interceded and the rogue was restored to his post. 2° In March 1756 ‘Ali Mohammad Khan Zand was driven back by Taqi Khan

from Yazd to Isfahan. ~/ Late in 1757 the vakil also sent Sadeq Khan to Yazd to extract 7000 tumans from him, but how successful this venture was is not recorded!® At all events, it was not until September of 1758, when Karim and his army set off northward from Shiraz in pursuit of Mohammad Hasan Khan, that he was able to enter Yazd in force and bring Taqi Khan to book. To save time, he sent ahead Zaki Khan and three hundred horse by the most direct route; they were there by dawn of the

third day, slipped into the governor's castle and, capturing his lieutenant, forced the latter to demand admission to Taqi Khan's quarters to confer about Karim Khan's advance. The ruse worked, the guards were overpowered, and Taqi Khan was dragged

straight from his bed to the rack. By the time Karim arrived with the amy, Zaki had already squeezed 12,000 tumans out of his prisoner, who was forced to disgorge 15,000 more to his creditors in Yazd before being replaced.*” However, Yazd was not long to remain detached from Kerman. On 13 April 1760, While Karim was in the Khamsa region, Shahrokh Khan retook it.7 This was a po-

tential threat to Isfahan, and the Vakil therefore determined to impose his authcrity on Kerman even while he was preparing for a critical campaign in Azerbaijan. For this purpose he detailed a task force of five thousand men under Khoda Morad Khan Zand. 7+

Meanwhile the populace of Kerman, and especially of the outlying towns, had grown so sick of Shahrokh Khan's exactions that in September 1760 they rose up en masse against him. He retaliated by bombarding the town and gaZ'a of Behabad, the

chief center of the insurrection, but the mutineers defended it with spirit. As Shahrokh Khan was observing operations from a nearby tower, a sniper's bullet passed clean through the mud parapet behind which he was sheltering and mortally wounded him.*4 His sudden demise after thirteen years of undisputed rule seemed 15. GM, 41; GD IX, 11 October 1756. 16. TGG, 76. 17. GD VIII, 31 March 1756. 18. GD X, 28 December 1757. It was probably this expedition that included a ragged, poorly equipped, and potentially mutinous Lari contingent under “Ali Khan, son of Nasir Khan (Eqted&ri, 281-89; see chap. 7, note 51). 19. GM, 42-43; TGG, 77-78. 20. GD XI, 30 April 1760. 21. GM, 74; TGG, 91; GD XII, 23 December 1760. 22. GM, 74; GD XII, 17 and 19 October, 22 December 1760; Brieven 2919 (1762), Kharg II, 18 (30 November 1760). Vaziri (321) states that Shahrokh Khan was shot while besieging Taqi Khan Bafqi at Bafq; but the EIC linguist's report from Kermin confirms the accounts given by Nami and Ghaffari. Moreover, Taqi Khan had been Stripped of power two years before (see above).

128 Consolidatton and Expansion, 1763-79 to facilitate Khoda Morad's task: one month later, on 20 October, he arrived within four hours march of Kerman and confidently sent demands for submission to Shahrokh Khan's popular successor, Taqi Khan Bami .2° He replied that they would of course obey a civil governor appointed by Karim Khan, but refused to admit Khoda Morad until instructions had arrived from the Vakil himself. “4 The Zand khan then blockaded the city for six weeks. On 19 November he de-

feated a sortie, capturing a number of swivel guns (zanburake) and driving the garrison back to the shelter of the fortress. On 4 December favorable terms were negotiated; Khoda Morad marched in and promptly manifested his contempt for the terms agreed upon by wholesale arrest and extortion.”> This policy was hardly

modified by the arrival of the Vakil's orders, since these included a demand for 27,000 tumans--equivalent to seven times the normal annual tax per capita. Many of the citizens packed and left before the painful process of collecting it should begin in earnest. 26 Khoda Morad further secured a comfortable personal income by taking over several bakeries and butcher's, grocer's, and other shops .7/ The mutinies in the provincial towns went on unchecked, if not intensified by the new governor's no less oppressive policy. On 5 March 1761 Khoda Morad was ob-

liged to send the bulk of his army to quell one such revolt at Mashiz, five farsakhs to the southwest, where Rashid Khan Afshar, a kinsman of the late Shahrokh Khan, was in alliance with a certain Taqi Beg Soltan.7® 8.3 TAQI KHAN DORRANI

The story of Taqi Beg Soltan Dorrani is one of the most remarkable in the history of this period. Were it not that Vaziri's account of his seizure of Kerman is confirmed by Nami, Ghaffari, and the Gombroon diarist, it would be tempting to

dismiss as too fanciful the tale of his earlier exploits that has found its way into the Tarikh-e Kerman. According to this, Taqi was originally a poor charcoal seller who used to drive donkey loads of his ware from his home village of Dorran in the Kuhpaya mountains, twelve farsakhs to the north,” and would amuse himself by hunting on the way. On one such journey he bagged a huge mountain sheep and on arrival gave it to Khoda Morad's servants as a present to the khan, in the hope of a monetary reward. The sheep was duly cooked for the governor's supper, but no reward was forthcoming. The exasperated Taqi decided eventually to give up waiting and go, but was then set upon by the ushers and guards who had seen him arrive with his gift and now demanded the customary gratuity from a beneficiary of the 23. GM, 74, gives one Baqer Beg as now being in control of Kerman; GD (XII,

December 1760) has Taqi Khan Bami.

24. GD XII, 17 and 19 October 1760. 25. GM, 75; Donboli, fajreba II, 35; GD XII, 23 December 1760 (Ghaffari im-

plies that the siege was much shorter than GD reports indicate). 26. GD XII, 27 February 1761. 27. Rostam, 376. 28. GD XII, 16 April 1761. 29. See FJI VIII, 150.

Kerman and Yazd 129 governor. Refusing to believe his protests that he had received nothing, they laid about him with abuse, blows and kicks, and confiscated his gun until he had sold enough charcoal to pay the sum they demanded. Next day Taqi clung to the khan's stirrup as he rode out and complained of his shameful treatment. Far from redressing his grievance, Khoda Morad ordered

his servants to give the wretch another beating and throw him out of town. Taqi limped home with a raging sense of injustice and had soon collected a band of some three hundred musketeers from among sympathetic relatives and friends and local mountain bandits, with which he immediately took to harassing Khoda Morad's men in

a private guerrilla war.°” The ease with which Taqi mounted his campaign against the governor belies his

origin as a simple charcoal burner. Ghaffari in fact states that he had already gained some wealth and influence under Shahrokh Khan; and among Rostam's heroic

clichés lurks an indication that Taqi the huntsman and sharpshooter was a selfconfident ‘ayyar with considerable reputation and influence among the workers and artisans of Kerman--a kind of latter-day Ya'qub the Coppersmith. His rebellion may therefore be seen as both a personal reaction to Khoda Morad's refusal to accord him his customary privileges and a social revolt against a despotic and alien government that was manifestly doing nothing to alleviate the economic hardships suffered in the region for so long. His alliance with Rashid Khan marks a more ambitious stage of his vendetta. While the former kept the governor's army busy outside Mashiz, Taqi took a small task force of about fifty men and on the night of 1 Ramadan 1174/25-26 March 1761 scaled the walls of unsuspecting Kerman. By sunrise his men were in control of the qaZ'a and the whole length of the walls and descended upon the depleted and unwary guard at the governor's palace. Khoda Morad Khan, barely out of bed, was

shot from his horse on sight and hacked to pieces. His agents and collaborators were hunted down all over the city by the victorious rebels, and in no time the whole place was firmly in their hands. Khoda Morad's regime had lasted a bare four months .°4

The success of Taqi Beg's Robin Hood-like revolt against the tyrant ensured his popularity, and for some time he seemed at pains to promote his image as friend of the poor and oppressed, by mulcting those who had grown rich during the previous regimes. He.soon had a standing army of more than a thousand and the support of the towns that had rebelled against both Shahrokh Khan and Khoda Morad. He appointed his brother Ahmad Soltan to be saheb-ekhteyar or darugha of Kerman ,°“

30. Vaziri, 322-23. For slightly different accounts of Taqi's background

and of the insults he suffered from Khoda Morad, see GM, 75, and Rostam, 375. 31. TGG, 118; Vaziri, 323; GD VII, 16 April 1761; Saldanha, 146. GD gives 1 Ramadan as equivalent to 6 April.

32. Vaziri, 323; GD XII, 15 June 1761. Presumably this post entailed respon-

sibility for civic security and the garrison; cf. 16.4.

130 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 and the former kalantar, Mirza Hosayn, as civil governor, >> reserving for himself the position of sardar and affecting from now on the title of Taqi Khan Dorrani. He secured Bam and the Sistan territories formerly held by Shahrokh Khan and renewed the military alliance with various tribes of Sistan.>“ About a year after he had first taken over, he stripped Mirza Hosayn of his governorship for allegedly rebelling against him and concentrated all civil and military power in his own hands. Kerman slid back into civil turmoil and economic stagnation, if indeed it

had ever struggled free.” Late in 1761, Nasir Khan Lari was reported to be moving against Kerman on

Karim's instructions, but nothing seems to have come of this .~° The Vakil's next attempt to reconquer Kerman came eighteen months after Khoda Morad's death, in August of 1762. Taqi Khan Bafqi, the disgraced ex-governor of Yazd, had been taken along with the Zand amy to Tehran, where he repeatedly urged the Vakil to give him a chance to make good his protestations of loyalty and recover his standing by leading an expedition against his namesake at Kerman. Although Karim had no illusions about this cowardly windbag, he at last acceded to his pleas and provided a mixed army of five or six thousand, which included contingents from Na'in, Kuhpaya, Ardestan, and Yazd. With much pomp and promise, Taqi set off through Yazd and Bafq, preceded as he neared Kerman by an advance guard of three thousand under Mohammad Reza Beg Zangana and Adina Soltan Fayli.

Taqi Khan Dorrani sent out some infantry and a few hundred musketeers, who

took up their positions in a line of disused ganats at the village of Tajabad just south of Zarand.”! Mohammad Reza's cavalry were lured into a gallant charge and were soon being mown down from concealed positions by the practiced tufangchis ; those who got through, disorganized and demoralized, were mopped up or put to

flight by the infantry. At this the advance guard turned tail and infected the main body with its premature panic, so that Taqi Bafqi led a wild retreat to a ruined fort several farsakhs to the rear, where he hid from the nonexistent pursuit for the rest of the day and under cover of darkness hared back to Yazd.* To add to this ignominy, Taqi Khan celebrated his safe return with sacrifice and thanksgiving and issued a fathnama in which he proclaimed that true victory conSists in a general's bringing his troops back to base without casualties. When 33. GD XII, 27 April 1761; he is here named as Mirza Hasan, but Vaziri

(330 ££.) and Nami (TGG, 152) both have Mirza Hosayn.

34. GD XII, 15 June 1761. 35. GD XII, 1 October 1761; XIII, 10 December 1761. 36. GD XIII, 24 December 1761.

37. See FJI VIII, 81 (first entry). 38. GM, 76-77; TGG, 141-42; Vaziri, 325-26; GD XIII, 4 September 1762. Nami

omits the skirmish altogether, claiming that one night, when still 4 farsakhs from the enemy, Taqi roused his men for what they supposed would be a daring night at-

tack, only to retreat at full gallop. Furthermore, Nami, followed by Vaziri,

places this episode after the campaign of Garusi and Amir Guna Khan, when Karim was in Shiraz; but GD once again endorses both the detail and the chronology of Ghaffari's account.

Kerman and Yazd 131 Karim heard of this, he is said to have laughed heartily and declared that such is the nature of townsmen. 39 Karim's third attempt to subject Kerman was launched probably in spring of

1764, after his reconquest of Isfahan. The force of some six thousand men with artillery was under the joint command of Mohammad Amin Khan Garusi and Amir Guna

Khan Afshar Taromi .“? From the outset their alliance was an uneasy one, strained by jealousy over the command. Garusi accused Amir Guna of indiscriminate looting of the civilian population on their way through Rafsenjan, and even before they reached Kerman these differences were reflected in their officers and men so that the Garusi Kurds and the Taromi Afshars split up and even came to blows. Appeals were made ‘to the Vakil to judge between them: his investigators found for the Garusi Khan, and accordingly Amir Guna was recalled in disgrace. He threw himself on the mercy of Karim's brother Sadeq in Shiraz, who successfully interceded for him on the Vakil's return and so saved his life.“1 According to Ghaffari, the rival generals came within four days' march of Kerman together, and it was a surprise night attack by Taqi Khan's veterans that finally sent Amir Guna Khan fleeing back to Shiraz./? Certainly neither of these two seems to have been a master of the military arts, and it was by luck and treachery rather than generalship that Mohammad Amin Khan, now in sole command, reduced Kerman. On his final approach, Taqi Khan was absent at Dorran, recruiting

his veteran musketeers, who had been quelling a rising there, and had left in charge of Kerman the saheb-ekhteyar, his brother Ahmad Soltan. Mohammad Amin was

informed of this by fifth columnists in the town and by a forced march reached the walls of Kerman before Taqi Khan's return. Ahmad Soltan was thereupon overpowered by the mitineers, who apparently had a majority of the townsfolk behind them, and the besiegers were admitted without resistance.” 8.4 RETURN AND FALL OF TAQI KHAN DORRANI

Garusi's triumph lasted a bare two months; during that time he was apparently unable to extend his authority outside the town. Taqi Khan calmly collected his Dorrani musketeers and mounted a raid similar to that which had initially gained him Kerman: at dawn his marksmen scaled the walls, captured some of the towers, overran the town by way of the rooftops, and apparently found enough of the 39. "Mardoman-e shahri chonin bashand,'' TGG, 142; Vaziri, 326. 40. GM, 138; TGG, 118-19. This dating accords more or less with the sequence of Nami's account. Ghaffari places this expedition in 1178/1765, but in spring and summer of that year Amir Guna Khan was blockading Bandar Rig (Niebuhr, Retse, 100 ff., 180; see 10.4). The EIC records are silent on events in Kerman from this time forth, but a Dutch report of December 1764 (Brieven 3048 [1766], 65) asserts that Karim Khan had recently been active against Kerman, which could refer to just such an abortive expedition. 41. TGG, 136-37; Vaziri, 324. 42. GM, 143. 43. Ibid.; TGG, 140.

132 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 townsmen still willing to support him to recapture it. Mohammad Amin Khan sent

his troops to try to repel the rebels, but they were beaten back with loss, and the Garusi governor, doubtless recalling the fate of his predecessor Khoda Morad, quickly collected his baggage and the remants of his forces and fled the town. “4 Karim Khan himself was still occupied in subduing his western marches. For want of another army to commit in what was after all a secondary consideration, he pardoned Mohammad Amin's mishandling of his commission, reinforced him, and sent

him back to try again, perhaps in spring 1765. This time fortune completely turned her back on him: at a battle near Kerman he was driven back by Taqi Khan into a ruined fortress, from which he was ultimately evicted by repeated attacks,

and retired once more to Shiraz. For the fifth round of what looked like becoming a continuing sideshow, the Vakil commissioned a trusted veteran, 'Ali Khan Shahiseven, with an army of ten thousand men and artillery. He advanced at a careful rate, securing his communications all along the route, until Taqi Khan marched out three days from Kerman to meet him. For the first time the redoubtable rebel was defeated and driven back on Kerman. ‘Ali Khan continued his advance to the city walls and organized a regular siege from headquarters set up in the Bagh-e Shahrokh Khan. Three days later, Taqi Khan led a sortie in force, employing his oid stratagem of concealing musketeers in a line of ganats to break up the enemy cavalry. But in the Shahiseven khan he had an adversary of a different order from Taqi Khan Bafqi, one whose fluid and aggressive defense drove both his cavalry and musketeers back to the fortress with such loss that they made no more sorties for two months. then Taqi Khan attempted to repeat the same tactics and was repulsed as before. This time, however, 'Ali Khan, who was in the forefront of the pursuit, found himself momentarily isolated between the skirmishing at the ditch and the city walls, and was shot dead by a marksman in one of the towers. His brother, equally prudent and

methodical, rallied the army before it could disintegrate and fall into Taqi's hands, but was unable to do more than lead an organized retreat to Shiraz. *®

This loss of one of his best officers, crowning all the previous failures at Kerman, was a considerable embarrassment to the Vakil. No doubt the story was spread then, as it has appeared since, that Taqi Khan himself, the renowned hunter, was the marksman who had hit 'Ali Khan. The spot was pinpointed--the Borj-e Molla Qoli, near the Darvaza-ye Masjed; the range was estimated at fifteen hundred paces and doubtless more. The legend grew to embrace the "'two Qolis,"' two Kermani craftsmen known as ''Q01i Tufang-saz" (the gunsmith) and "Qoli Barut-kub" (the powdermaker), whom Taqi Khan employed exclusively to make for him what were regarded with almost superstitious awe as the best guns and powder in Tran. 7 It began to 44, GM, 143; TGG, 140-41. 45. GM, 145-46. 46. GM, 146-47; TGG, 143; Vaziri, 327.

47. Vaziri, 327; Rostam, 377.

Kerman and Yazd 135 look as if this invincible popular hero would make mock of Karim's pretensions to

be regent of all western Iran. 'Ali Khan's army was immediately sent to try again, this time under the command of Nazar 'Ali Khan Zand, seconded by 'Ali Mohammad Khan and Bestam Khan Zand.

Like his predecessor, he was careful to secure the outlying regions on his way toward the city and in addition made judicious use of propaganda aimed at both the regions and the city itself, promising and granting a free pardon for all anda just administration if they offered no resistance. Since Taqi Khan had by now proved himself as studious of his own interests as any previous governor, there existed in Kerman a considerable opposition party which was thus encouraged to act. At Sirjan Nazar 'Ali prepared his forces for battle, but met no resistance before they halted one farsakh south of the city and dug in. Taqi Khan wisely judged that a sortie on his previous model would now be too risky and remained under siege for the next three or four months, probably till the early spring of 1766, while supplies in the town steadily dwindled and popular disaffection increased. “8

A conspiracy was formed to put an end to this intolerable situation. Clandestine contact was established with Nazar 'Ali Khan, who stationed men outside every gate so that Taqi would be denied an eScape route when the mutineers struck. On the day chosen, Taqi was openly defied by both the civil servants who had so far administered his regime and by his troops, including even his own musketeers from Dorran, while the Giri gate on the northern side was thrown open to the Zand army. Taqi now realized his career in Kerman was at an end and tried to flee; but he was turned back from each gate by his own men, denied access to the citadel by shots from the garrison there, and finally seized and bound by the men of Mashiz, who had been the initiators and leaders of the mutiny. He was handed over to Nazar 'Ali Khan and sent under guard to Shiraz, where at Nawruz 1179/1766 he was tortured to death or strangled. *” Rostam ol-Hokama' gives a version of his end more fitting for an adventurer of humble origin and legendary stature who had held Kerman for five years against the most powerful army in Iran. Karim Khan had a rope looped round his neck and ordered a man on either end to strangle him, but Taqi seized both sides of the rope and pulled so strongly that even when his would-be hangmen were reinforced

to twenty he still pulled them off their feet. It finally took all the court servants combined in a grotesque three-way tug-o'-war to throttle him,??

48. GM, 148; Vaziri, 328; TGG, 150. The latter asserts that Taqi Khan made daily sorties, but the former both remark on the unusual course he took in not COE GM, 149-50; TGG, 151-52; Vaziri, 328; Tafrashi, 216a. Nami states that Taqi was escorted out under pain of being handed over bound, to sue for terms with Nazar “Ali. 50. Rostam, 377.

134 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79 8.5 KERMAN UNDER ZAND SUZERAINTY

Nazar 'Ali returned to Shiraz, leaving Bestam Khan Zand as military governor of the province with a force of only five hundred men and the powers of a civil governor until one should be officially appointed. He seems to have done little to gain the confidence of the Kermanis, whose complaints of his oppression and injustice caused him to be recalled and replaced by Mirza Hosayn Rayeni, the former kalantar whom Taqi Khan Dorrani first appointed governor and then dismissed, and by Aga 'Ali Sirjani, who was given the title of khan and was perhaps meant to act

as sardar. The Vakil further excused the province a year's tax remittance to allow it to recover from the ravages of the past few years .>Unfortunately the two appointees could agree together no better than had Amir Guna Khan and Mohammad Amin Garusi. They quarreled over demarcation of authority

from the outset, and as a result the province was divided between them on a geographical basis: the northeastern part, comprising the city of Kerman (Gavashir), Khabis (present-day Shahdad), Bam, Narmashir, Rayen, Ravar, Zarand, Rafsenjan, Anar, and Bardasir, was allotted to Mirza Hosayn, and the southwestern portion, Babak, Sirjan, Eqta', Orzu'iya, Kushk, Sawghan, and Esfandaqa, to ‘Ali Khan Sir-

jani, as he was now titled. Both men delivered their taxes to Shiraz regularly enough, but ‘Ali Khan's administration was conspicuously more efficient than that of his rival. This he owed chiefly to having appointed his reliable brothers Mohammad Reza Khan and Shah Hosayn Khan to the Babak district and the Eqta'-Orzu'iyaKushk region, respectively, while he himself remained based on his home town of

Sirjan. The less fortunate Mirza Hosayn in Kerman, having no such relatives, strove largely unsuccessfully to apply some measure of control to his agents Mortaza Qoli Khan (a son of Shahrokh Khan) in Zarand, Reza Qoli Khan Kuhbanani in his own region of Kuhbanan, and Mohammad Hosayn Khan in Bam.

Jupar, only five farsakhs south of Kerman, was under the control of Mohammad ‘Ali and Mortaza Qoli Khan, two sons of one 'Ali Naqi Beg, whose daughter had married Bestam Khan Zand when he was governor. Seeing Mirza Hosayn's weakness, they

took to raiding the provincial capital itself and on one occasion even beat and robbed Mirza Hosayn in his own residence. He reported their misdeeds to Shiraz, and Mohammad Zaher Khan Bakhtyari was sent with a force to subdue them. Relying

on the influence of their brother-in-law, they came out to meet him with every semblance of submission, as did Mirza Hosayn's three other "subordinates"; all were summoned to Shiraz together with several other local figures who had given cause for complaint and Mirza Hosayn himself. The whole case of the administration of northeastern Kerman province was thrashed out before the Vakil, and as a result Bam and Narmashir were awarded to Mohammad Hosayn Khan and Amir Beg Sis-

tani, and Zarand and Kuhbanan to Mortaza Qoli Khan, both to be administered 51. TGG, 152-53; Vaziri, 329-30.

52. Vaziri, 330.

Kerman and Yazd 135 independently of Kerman and the revenue remitted direct to Shiraz. The metropolis itself was to be under a kalantar, Aqa Taqi, who came of a long line of Kermani kalantars (his father, Aga 'Ali Reza, had been killed by Shahrokh Khan for his loyalty to the Vaki1).°° Mirza Hosayn retained only Sirjan, Eqta', Kushk, and Orzu'iya.”" 8.6 SAYYED ABU'L-HASAN

The date when this change was effected is not recorded, nor is that of the appointment of the next governor. It would seem, however, that this parceling out of Kerman was an interim arrangement and that it was not long before Sayyed Abu'1Hasan ‘Ali Shah Mahallati Kohaki>> was appointed from Shiraz to assume the governorship of the whole province. Abu'l-Hasan, a direct forebear of the Aqa Khan,” came of a family of Nezari Ismaili sayyeds who had long lived at Anjadan, as did others of the line in Qom. However, the anarchy of the interregnum had robbed them of a good part of their

living, in the form of the statutory remittance (khoms) sent to them by Ismaili communities in India and around Jam and Langar, since any money that had escaped

the attentions of the bandits who preyed on the Na'in-Yazd stretch of the caravan route was pocketed by local kalantars and kadkhodas in the name of customs dues and road tolls. Toward the end of Nader's reign, therefore, the sayyeds moved tc Babak, where they had some chance of intercepting their income before these paraSites could. Here they prospered, a regular procession of alms and disciples fran India increasing both their wealth and status. Before long they had bought up a great deal of land, which they developed to their own and the general welfare, acquiring a reputation for piety and generosity. After Nader's death, their leader Sayyed Hasan took a winter residence in Kerman itself, retaining his house at Babak for the summer. Shahrokh Khan accorded him great respect, even marrying his

son Lotf 'Ali Khan to the sayyed's daughter. As his successor, Abu'l-Hasan enjoyed the respect of all the leading citizens and even the provincial warlords ard would seem the perfect choice for beglerbegi now that Kerman was relatively settled.>’ On his appointment, therefore, Mirza Hosayn, Mortaza Qoli Khan, and the other local rulers meekly handed over their provinces to him. No details of his admin-

istration are recorded; he probably reallocated the regions to several local khars and used his moral rather than military authority to check injustice. He remained on good terms with the leading men of the bureaucratic class, consulting them

53. Ibid., 331. 54. Ibid., 333. 55. For the village of Kohak in Mahallat, see FJI I, 188 (third entry). For a brief biography of the sayyed, see Bamdad I, 37-38. 56. See Nafisi, 39. 57. Vaziri, 332-33; Rostam, 378.

136 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 readily in matters of government. His private income of 20,000 tumans a year from Indian Ismailis precluded any necessity for peculation or extortion. In this happy Situation he was able to govern Kerman wisely and well for the rest of Karim Khan's reign.>° 58. Vaziri, 333-34. In 1205/1790 the sayyed declared for Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar and denied entry to Lotf “Ali Khan Zand when he advanced on Kerman (Epilogue}. He died in 1206 or 1207/1791-93 (Bamdad I, 38).

9 The Qajar Revival

9.1 EVENTS ON THE DEATH OF MOHAMMAD HASAN KHAN

We must now return briefly to early 1759 when, with the murder of Mohammad Hasan Khan by his’ Develu rival and the fall of Astarabad to a Yukhari-bash puppet government under the Zands, Qajar power seemed to be broken for good. The late chief had left nine sons; these were, in order, Agha Mohammad Khan, aged seventeen or

eighteen, and Hosayn Qoli Khan, aged about ten or twelve, both by Jayran, a wife from his own Qoyunlu clan; Mostafa Qoli and Mortaza Qoli, by the sister of Mohammad Hosayn Khan Develu; and Ja'far Qoli, Mahdi Qoli, 'Abbas Qoli, Reza Qoli, and "Ali Qoli by three other wives or concubines. Of his other close relatives only his eldest daughter, Bibi Shahjahan Khanom, and his sister Khadija Bigom are mentioned by name. + In fear of Develu vengeance for their father's massacre of his

rivals, the two eldest boys fled with most if not all of their brothers, their uncle Mohammad Khan, and several male cousins, to the traditional Qajar refuge, the Dasht-e Qipchaq, the Turkman steppe northeast of Astarabad.” After having recalled Shaykh ‘Ali Khan from his capture of Astarabad, Karim gave the governorship to (Mohammad) Hosayn Khan Develu. He was immediately sub-

jected to fierce raids by the refugee Qoyunlu khans and their Turkman allies. However, a year later, in 1175/1761, the Develu khan managed to ambush such a force of about a thousand Turkman and Qajars on their way back from a raid on the environs of Astarabad, killing or wounding many of the Qoyunlu khans and capturing Mohammad Khan, the maternal uncle of Agha Mohammad Khan. The young eunuch himself

was forced to take to his heels and ride for three days to the imagined safety of the Ashraf area. But Mohammad Khan Savadkuhi, the renegade governor of Mazandaran,

was informed of his whereabouts and succeeded in intercepting him. He was interned at Barforush and subsequently sent on Karim's orders to Tehran, where the Vakil treated him with every honor and kindness and urged him to persuade the remaining Qoyunlu refugees to give themselves up.

This capture of their leader and the possibility of reprisals on their relatives at Astarabad, plus assurances that if they surrendered they would live in safe and honorable exile at the Vakil's court rather than at the mercy of their 1. Saru'i, Zla-b; Nafisi, 38-39; Pakravan, 48. The order of age given here is that of Nafisi, but other versions exist; cf. Butkov I, 245; Nava'i, Karim

Khan-e Zand, 122.

2. Saru'i, 21a; TGG, 170; RSN IX, 71-72; MN, 305-6. 137

138 Consolidatton and Expanston, 1763-79 blood-enemies the Develu at Astarabad, induced them to leave the discomforts of the steppe for the family estates at Chahardeh-Kalata and Hazar Jarib, stretching between Astarabad and Damghan.~ On the conclusion of Karim's Azerbaijan campaign in 1177/1763, Bestam Khan Zand was sent with a thousand men to escort the leading Qoyunlu Qajars as hostages to Shiraz, where they were treated with Karim's customary kindness. Mostafa Qoli and Mortaza Qoli were left with their mother in Astarabad at the request of their uncle, the governor Hosayn Khan Develu, either out of avuncular affection or, more likely, as hostages against the contingency of a Qoyunlu reprisal. The seven-year-old 'Abbas Qoli Khan died at Tehran on the way and was buried at the shrine of Shah 'Abd ol-'Azim at Rayy with his father's head.” Hosayn Qoli Khan either was sent straight to Shiraz with Agha Mohammad and some of his other

brothers (according to the Qajar chronicles) or was first settled on Qajar property in Qazvin, as also were the young Ja'far Qoli and ‘Ali Qoli, and did not join Agha Mohammad in Shiraz for several years.> Mohammad Hasan's sister Khadija Bigom was married to Karim Khan and eventually joined his harem in Shiraz ,° where she

was to play a Significant role at the end of the vakil's life in helping her nephew Agha Mohammad to escape (9.7). His daughter Bibi Shahjahan was likewise taken

from Qazvin to Shiraz, either then or later, as a prospective wife for Karim's young son Mohammad Rahim Khan, but is said to have been reviled by this prince's

Sister as fit only for a muleteer and eventually to have been married to ‘Ali Morad Khan Zand./ Another sister of the late Qajar chief married the Ismaili sayyed, Abu'1-Hasan Khan,® who was to become the Vakil's governor of Kerman (8.6).

By this genuine moderation in his treatment of the ruling Qajar clan, Karim doubtless hoped to win their acquiescence in his hold over Mazandaran, if not their active cooperation. He seems furthermore to have sought to maintain peace

within their province, even at the price of forfeiting a superficially more attractive policy of divide et impera: he did not favor either one of the rival branches to the same extent as the Safavids or Nader Shah, and his subsequent appointment of Hosayn Qoli Khan to govern Damghan would appear to be an attempt to

3. RSN IX, 76-77; MN, 307-8. Hazar Jarib is a district south of Ashraf: see FJI III, 325, and Kayhan II, maps facing pp. 282, 304. Chahardeh (Chardeh) and Kalata are adjacent dehestans northeast of Damghan; see FJI III, map.

4. Saruti, 21b; TGG, 170; RSN IX, 78. 7 5. GM, 174; TGG, 170; Bind, 34. Mostawfi (1-2) claims that both Agha Moham-

mad Khan and Hosayn Qoli Khan were allowed to remain on their ancestral lands at Damghan until after Hosayn Qoli's revolt in his capacity of governor, when Agha Mohammad was transferred to Shiraz as a hostage. Pakravan (39-40) says that Hosayn Qoli was allowed to stay at Damghan with other members of his family until

he rebelled and was then transferred to Qazvin--i.e. he was never taken to Shiraz; this view is shared by Nafisi (40). For the younger brothers, see also below, 9.6 and note 36. 6. RSN IX; Esfahani, 4a-b.

7. Nafisi, 39; Pakravan, 28.

8. Nafisi, 39.

The Qajar Revival 129 counterbalance the Yukhari-bash takeover of Astarabad, which expediency had prompted him to confirm.

Unfortunately, this wise approach was largely nullified by the legacy of the military pacification of the area undertaken by Zaki Khan. This contrasted in its ferocity with the mildness of the Vakil's political readjustment and created a resentment among the populace at large, exacerbated by further clashes with Zaki Khan after the revolt of Hosayn Qoli Khan that fostered enduring hostility and ultimate revulsion from Zand rule. 9,2 ZAKI KHAN'S FIRST MAZANDARAN CAMPAIGN

In the early spring of 1172/1759 Zaki was dispatched to replace Shaykh 'Ali Khan as sardar of Mazandaran. Rafi' Khan Develu, a brother of Hosayn Khan, had raised

an army and hastened to the provincial frontier to give battle. Zaki reached Sennan first, fortified it, and then marched so swiftly on the rebel lines at a place named Soltan Maydan, between Hazar Jarib and Damghan, that they were completely

surprised and fled back toward Astarabad. Zaki then returned to Semnan, which he Seems to have considered the best base from which to pacify the province. Some time later Rafi' Khan, now reinforced by Zaman Khan and a body of Afghans who had somehow escaped the Nawruz massacre, marched on Sari. Zaki detailed 'Ali Khan

Shahiseven to intercept them, but he was defeated at 'Aliabad and retreated to Seman. Zaki, incensed at his subordinate's failure, had his whiskers cut off and sent him back to try again.” The two armies met again at 'Aliabad and this time 'Ali Khan, probably fearing for a more substantial part of his anatomy, attacked with great vigor and routed the Qajars. However, they proved extremely resilient, and while ‘Ali Khan was in the fortress at Sari and his army encamped outside, they attacked in force and ran off all the Zand army's horses, which had been grazing some distance fron the camp. ‘Ali Khan, still desperate not to lose face again, pursued them and apparently defeated them. Zaki Khan now moved to Ashraf to block their main lines of communication, and Rafi' Khan, despairing of success, submitted with all his troops and was accepted as an ally. Zaman Khan, whose Afghans could expect no mercy, fled for refuge to the Turkman steppe. By autumn of 1174/1760 Zaki had fulfilled his commission to subdue Mazandaran and returned to a hero's welcome from the Vakil in Tehran, which may well have

contributed to the inflation of ego that brought about his subsequent defection. The post of beglerbegi of Mazandaran was given to a Yukhari-bash khan, Mirza 'Ali, eldest son of the Mohammad Vali Khan who had been killed in the massacre arranged by Mohammad Hasan Khan. Gilan, which would lie immediately to the rear in Karim's proposed Azerbaijan campaign, was placed under Nazar 'Ali Khan Zand. 1° 9. GM, 59-60; GD XI, 29 July 1760 reports that Zaki Khan was defeated near

Astarabad, which perhaps refers to this battle. 10. GM, 60.

140 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79 Three years later the Zands returned southward with their Qoyunlu hostages, leaving Mazandaran still apparently peaceful. About this time, Hosayn Khan Develu died a victim of the plague that swept over the Astarabad area, but the governorship passed smoothly to his brother, Mohammad Hasan Khan.) ‘the province seems to have remained peaceful until the appointment of Hosayn Qoli Khan to Damghan in late 1182/early 1769. 9.3 THE REVOLT OF HOSAYN QOLI KHAN

Karim Khan's motives in assigning a position of authority to the heir apparent of the Qajar house in his own territory are not sufficiently clear. Perhaps he was confident that, as the young man, now twenty years olu, had been wellbehaved in Shiraz and as ten years had elapsed since his father's death, he would accept this responsibility with gratitude and loyalty. Perhaps, as the Qajar historians assert, he really was persuaded by Agha Mohammad Khan--for whose political

Sagacity he had a genuine respect--that this was the best way to retain full control of Mazandaran. 12 Perhaps he yielded to the youth's pleas of homesickness and allowed him to return to his mother and family--with the local governorship as an honor testifying to the respect and trust in which he was held--considering that Agha Mohammad was now sufficient as a hostage. Perhaps, after all, Karim was as short-sighted in this case as he was in not making adequate preparations for his own succession and did not see it as the first step to dynastic suicide. Whatever the case, Hosayn Qoli Khan set out with a commission to govern Damghan on 20 Shawwal 1182/27 February 1769. His first action on taking up his appointment was to marry the daughter of a Qajar noble of the 'Ezz ol-Dinlu clan, in order to secure the Qajar succession: of this union was born in the following year the future Fath ‘Ali Shah 19 Starting with a nucleus of twenty men, he then embarked on a program of recruiting and organizing the Ashagha-bash and their supporters and, by intimidation backed by open warfare when necessary, neutralized the power of the Develu and their Yukhari-bash adherents. All this he accomplished in the next eight years, while the Vakil, apart from occasional expeditions in the region of the Gulf littoral and the siege of Basra in 1775-76, was relatively free of provincial worries and could either have sent a strong army to depose the youth and even garrison the province or have exerted pressure on Agha Mohammad and the other hostages in his hands. But Hosayn Qoli Khan was careful to keep within the bounds of the traditional Qajar feud and could not be held to have

Yaised the standard of revolt directly against the Zands, with the result that 11. MN, 308. 12. MN, 310; RSN IX, 86. Nafisi (40) states that_Hosayn Qoli Khan was not appointed until 1185/1771, when he was twenty-one and Agha Mohammad thirty; he

appointment. . .

came from Qazvin to visit his brother in Shiraz and was then sent back with his 13. MN, 310. According to Hajji Farhad Mirza, followed by some historians (e.g. Fasa'i I, 228; Nafisi, 41) he was born three years later, in 1185/1771-72.

The Qajar Revtval 14] Karim was content to send three small expeditionary forces to replace or restore the Develu khans and exact apologies and contrite promises from the young Qoyunlu. Both Nami and Ghaffari, writing in the later Zand period, represent Hosayn Qoli as an innocent led astray by unnamed seditious elements in Mazandaran. 2*

This may merely repeat Qajar excuses of the time or, more likely, is a device to exonerate the forbearing Vakil from any hint of a major error of policy. The later Qajar historians stress the Qoyunlu-Develu feud and likewise hold that Hosayn Qoli remained fundamentally loyal to the Vakil. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it is tempting to believe that this episode was conceived and planned by the vengeful spirit of Agha Mohammad as he sat a prisoner-guest in Shiraz, spitefully carving up the Vakil's carpets and brooding on the past and future of the Qajar dynasty.) From Damghan Hosayn Qoli made his first foray against the Develu stronghold of Qal'a Namaka, 1® which guarded the mountain pass between Shahrud and Astarabad.

After a short siege the fortress was stormed, plundered, and razed, and the garrison massacred. The two Develu khans in command, Fath 'Ali and Jan Mohammad, managed to escape to Astarabad, where the governor, Hasan Khan, aware that he

could expect little support from the largely pro-Qoyunlu population on the ap-

proach of this brutal avenger, relinquished his post and fled to the estate of his nephew, Hosayn Qoli's half-brother Mortaza Qoli Khan, at Nawkanda 27 The Ashaghabash fifth column in Astarabad immediately invited Hosayn Qoli to take over the

city; but he declined to take a step that would be tantamount to open rebellion and contented himself with recruiting other disaffected Mazandarani leaders and their men. Such were his father's old allies, khans of the Yomud and Goklen Turkman with a thousand of their men; Kamal Khan Afghan and his compatriots who had escaped the massacres of 1758-59; and Allah Verdi Khan, the governor of Jajorm, all of whom returned with Hosayn Qoli to Damghan. 18 9.4 ZAKI KHAN'S SECOND CAMPAIGN AND OTHER ZAND EXPEDITIONS

The savage attack on Qal'a Namaka earned for the young Qajar the epithet of Jahansuz Shah (‘world-burner") and left few doubts about his aims in Mazandaran. Karin therefore sent a force of three thousand Luri and Kurdish cavalry under Zaki Khan to restore the status quo, whereat Hosayn Qoli retired with his whole following to the temporary safety of the Turkman steppe. Nevertheless, Hasan Khan Develu was

still too apprehensive to resume the governorship of the Qajar capital. This was given to Mirza ‘Ali Khan Develu, and Hasan Khan consented to rule Hazar Jarib, 14. TGG, 171; GM, 174.

low tee Cf. Sykes, 289; Mansuri in Khwandaniha, esp. No. 68, p. 28; see also be"16. See FJI ITI, 306, s.v. Namaka. 17. There are two places so called, one near Astarabad and one in Hazar Jarib. The latter is probably intended (see FJI III, 306, 2d entry). 18. MN, 310-11; RSN IX, 88-90.

142 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-78 where he and his family could feel safe in the strong fortress of Akarkay. Zaki Khan, having demolished the Qoyunlu fortress at Chahardeh-Kalata, took his army

back to Shiraz. Hosayn Qoli returned from the steppe in 1185/1771 and fiercely attacked Hasan Khan Develu in Qal'a Akarkay. Despite reinforcements of five hundred jazayerchis, the garrison was forced into the open and slaughtered; Hasan Khan himself, shot from his horse while trying to cut his way through to safety was decapitated, as was Mohammad 'Ali Aga, one of those who had pursued Hosayn Qoli's father to his death. His immediate vendetta terminated, Jahansuz Shah returned to Damghan to resume his governorship. He was challenged briefly in the following year by Feghan ‘Ali Khan of the Yukhari-bash, who, with the support of some Turkman, seized or bought the allegiance of several townships around Astarabad and began raiding into Hosayn Qoli's domain; but as soon as the latter marched on his fortress near Astarabad, the fifth column inside killed Feghan ‘Ali Khan and handed

over the fortress. Hosayn Qoli plundered his rival's possessions and killed his son. 2°

In this and the following years, several other fortresses of local chieftains were reduced by a combination of treachery from within and surprise forced marches from unexpected quarters, either by Hosayn Qoli himself or his right-hand man Pir Qoli Shambayati.72 The Qoyunlu khan now controlled the whole of Gorgan and east-

ern Mazandaran, including Astarabad itself, which, if he did not rule it directly, had such a pro-Ashagha-bash populace and so intimidated a governor that it could be considered his. Ashraf was added by 1772, and the avaricious Mohammad Khan Savadkuhi, the beglerbegi of Mazandaran who had retained his post by collaborating with the Zands in their pursuit of Mohammad Hasan Khan, held only Sari out of the

territories to the east of his administrative center, Barforush.?” Fearing that his fourteen years of power might soon be challenged directly, he reported Hosayn Qoli's latest crimes to Shiraz with appeals for reinforcements and was sent a thousand Zands and Lurs under Barzollah Khan Zand to stiffen his own local levies of nearly six thousand. With this force he marched through Sari on Astarabad. Hosayn Qoli Khan held him in check with his Turkman and Afghan irregulars at Kol bad, while he himself with five hundred picked men raced through the mountain tracks far to Mohammad Khan's right, covering the forty or more miles to Sari in one day, and scaled the walls that same night to overpower the guards and take the town. Mohammad Khan's supporters were killed, and his nephew, 'Ali Asghar, taken captive.?° Hearing of this disaster, the governor turned back toward Sari, but his 19. MN, 311; RSN IX, 90-91.

20. MN, 311-12; Saru'i, 25a-26b.

21. MN, 313; RSN IX, 98-101.

22. Pallas II, 4-5. Barforush is now called Babol. 23. MN, 312; Saru'i, 24b; TGG, 171. Saru'i gives 1000 Turkman as Hosayn Qolits force which took Sari.

The Qajar Revival 143 demoralized force, harassed by the pursuing Turkman and Afghans, was suddenly faced with a line of musketeers under Hosayn Qoli's younger brother, Mortaza Qoli

Khan. Their volleys blasted the remants of his army into ignominious flight. Mohammad Khan Savadkuhi was captured and taken back to Hosayn Qoli at Sari, who

advanced three days later on Barforush and took it without much difficulty. Here Mohammad Khan was tortured to reveal all his wealth and finally put to death. His son Mahdi Khan, whom he had left in charge of Barforush, had escaped in time to Shiraz with the news of these fresh outrages by the Qoyunlu rebel," leaving the latter free to secure all the booty he could over the next two months before returning to Astarabad with his brothers. There could no longer be any doubt that the sons of Mohammad Hosayn Khan were

intent on regaining their full political patrimony. Perhaps realizing that it would have no deterrent effect, Karim refrained from taking reprisals on Agha Mohamnad and attempted another military subjugation. He appointed Mahdi Khan to his

father's post and sent him back in the spring of 1187/1773 to secure it, with a force of 5000 horse under 'Ali Mohammad Khan Zand and a further 700 horse and 2006

foot to remain in the province as garrison reinforcements. Hosayn Qoli Khan fought unsuccessful holding battles at the 'Aliabad pass, near present-day Shahi, and was steadily driven back by the Zand army. After one more rearguard action at Kolbad, in which ‘Ali Mohammad's brothers Taher, Vali, and 'Ali Hemmat Khan Zand

particularly distinguished themselves, the rebel was driven again to take refuge with his Turkman allies on the steppe.2> Mirza 'Ali Khan Develu, the official governor of Astarabad, welcomed the Zand army and was confirmed in his appointment; Mahdi Khan was set up in office at Barforush, and 'Ali Mohammad Khan, having fulfilled his commission, returned to Shiraz. 2° He took with him a sister of Hosayn Qoli Khan, who had been seized at Nawkanda with part of the retreating Qajar's baggage by a renegade Turkman and sold to the Zand leader. Although he had married her at Astarabad, she had steadfastly denied him conjugal rights, and on his arrival at Shiraz the Vakil, under the influence of Khadija Bigom, upbraided his general for this abduction and sent the girl to live with her female relatives at Qazvin. So outraged was the Vakil's sense of chivalry, according to Ghaffari, that the unfortunate 'Ali Mohammad had to remain in the sanctuary of the shrine of Shah Mir Hamza for forty days before he was pardoned.

24. TGG, 172; GM, 175; Rostam, 358-59; Saru'i, 24b; cf. Butkov III, 127. 25. Ibid.; GM, 175-76. MN, 313, maintains that Hosayn Qoli was restrained

from giving battle to “Ali Mohammad by a letter from Agha Mohammad advising cau-

tion and fled straight to the steppe. Since Hosayn Qoli was now in open rebellion, this smacks of historiographical face-saving, and I am inclined to believe Ghaffari's more detailed account of this campaign--particularly since his statement that “Ali Morad Khan was sent just before Zaki's last campaign is confirmed by an EIC report (FR XVII, 1107 [19 October 1775]). 26. GM, 176; MN, 313. Nami (TGG, 172), followed by Fasa'i (I, 217), gives Zaki Khan as the prosecutor of this campaign and “Ali Mohammad of the subsequent

one (9.5). The order preferred here is that of Ghaffari and the Qajar historians.

144 Consoltdation and Expanston, 1763-78 9.5 ZAKI KHAN'S THIRD CAMPAIGN

Neither Karim's personal and political moderation in Shiraz nor his lieutenants’ military prowess in their successive attempts to shore up the Yukhari-bash puppet governments had any effect on the familiar patterns. From 1774, the Vakil's commitment of the bulk of his army to the Basran and Kurdish campaigns reduced the forces he could spare for counterinsurgency operations in the north. Hosayn Qoli Khan returned once more from the steppe and was rejoined by his younger brothers Mostafa Qoli and Mortaza Qoli in another year of raids on the Yukhari-bash. All who were related to or supported the Develu governors still nominally in power were attacked and put to the sword and their property and womenfolk seized. The survivors fled southward, spreading general alarm and leaving the Ashagha-bash rebels in undisputed command of the Mazandaran countryside. a7 But Mahdi Khan Savadkuhi in Barforush swore to avenge his father and, with the help of Jan Mohammad Khan Baluch, prepared an army to march against the rebels.

His military competence, however, fell short of his martial ardor, for in 1189/ 1775 he allowed himself to be surprised in Barforush itself. After a swift night march and dawn attack with seven hundred picked cavalry, a duplicate of the strate gem that had taken Sari from Mahdi Khan's father, Hosayn Qoli Khan contemptuously had his prisoner chained, beaten, and mulcted but subsequently released, probably to retain his post under a change of garrison as a vassal of the Qoyunlu instead of the Vakil: as Reza Qoli Khan puts it, '"'Henceforth Mahdi Khan knew his place and held his peace,"'78 Jan Mohammad Khan and his Baluch, their commission so em-

barrassingly curtailed, were permitted to march out unmolested to return via Firuzkuh. On their way, however, they ran into the main body of Hosayn Qoli's army, and rashly attacked. Hosayn Qoli at first sent a fellow Baluch khan to reason with Jan Mohammad, but, on his continuing unreasonable, the young Qajar counterattacked with his cavalry and beat off the Baluchis. Jan Mohammad himself

was lassoed and held prisoner for some time, but later released and sent back to Shiraz. °°

Hosayn Qoli's restraint in dealing with both these appointees of the Vakil was doubtless intended to stress that his actions were still blows in the civil war between Qoyunlu and Develu and were not aimed at Karim's authority. But the

Vakil was by this time almost at the limit of his forbearance. Later the same year he dispatched another force to Mazandaran under 'Ali Morad Khan Zand, who had some success but was apparently so harsh in his treatment even of loyal Yukhari-bash vassals that they complained to Karim, and he was recalled. © He was replaced in 1190/1776 by Zaki Khan, who set about restoring law and order with

27. RSN IX, 102-3; MN, 313. FR XVII, 1099 contains a report from Bushire to Bombay, dated 6 September 1775, to the effect that the rebel Hosayn Qoli Khan has many adherents in Mazandaran and Karim Khan's government is felt to be in danger. 28. RSN IX, 105. 29. Ibid., 103-5; MN, 314; TGG, 173-74. 30. GM, 201; FR XVII, 1107 (19 October 1775).

The Qajar Revival 145 scarcely less brutality. Hosayn Qoli Khan retreated before him without a fight, perhaps on the advice of Allah Verdi Khan Karayeli, the governor of Jajorm, who

gave him refuge in his fortress there before he fled to the steppe. ~Zaki Khan pressed on through Firuzkuh, Sari, and Nawkanda as far as Chahardelr Kalata, where various local khans refused to comply with his requisitions and shut

themselves in a stout fortress. With typical ruthlessness Zaki stormed this stronghold, put the leaders and garrison to the sword, and built a tower of their heads. Hajji Zaki Khan, the ringleader, was tied to a pole and beaten to death. Those who were spared were sent as prisoners to Shiraz.°“ Other atrocities committed by Zaki Khan at this time were preserved in the Qajar memory long afterward, such as planting his captives head down in the earth, tied to stakes, so that they suffocated.>> These gratuitous barbarities were condemned by Karim on Zaki's return”” and would seem hardly more conducive to peace and stability in the province than Hosayn Qoli's selfish perpetuation of a family feud for his personal aggrandizement, when either loyalty to his benefactor Karim Khan or a long-term plan for Qajar supremacy, aS envisaged by his elder brother, should have urged a reconciliation of the Qajar clans. JZaki's policy, however, appears to have been effective in the short term. Mirza 'Ali Khan Develu was confirmed in this governorship of Astarabad, and Hosayn Qoli's lieutenant in Damghan was removed: non-Qajar governors and headmen were thus encouraged to throw in their lot with the Zandsubsidized Yukhari-bash rather than the rebels, so that when Zaki Khan left for Shiraz, even Hosayn Qoli's Turkman allies began to oppose him.>> 9.6 THE DEATH OF HOSAYN QOLI KHAN

Mostafa Qoli and Mortaza Qoli were still lending token assistance to their halfbrother from Gorgan, but the late Mohammad Hasan Khan's two remaining sons, Ja'far 4

Qoli and ‘Ali Qoli, were now taken from Qazvin to join their brothers at Shiraz.” Shortly after this, Hosayn Qoli was persuaded by the fact that five of his brothers were hostages of the Vakil--backed by a cautionary letter from Agha Mohammad--to send his own son Baba Khan (the future Fath 'Ali Shah) to Shiraz as a pledge of 31. MN, 314; RSN IX, 106. 32. GM, 202; Rostam, 364-65; MN, 311; RSN IX, 90-91. These concur on the

main points of the atrocity, but the Qajar histories place it during Zaki Khan's previous campaign of 1184/1770, and name the ringleader as Esma il Khan, a forebear of the author of RSN. However, Ghaffari quotes as his source for this sec-

tion two officers who accompanied Zaki on this expedition, which makes this one of

the best-authenticated chapters in his chronicle. Rostam recounts, on the authority of an unnamed eyewitness, how Zaki beheaded 78 prisoners with his own hand before performing prayers. 33. Malcolm, 138; cf. Rostam, 365.

34. MN, 311, 314. Rostam (365) says he had to take bast in the Vakil's Stable.

35. GM, 203; MN, 314; RSN IX, 106. °

36. GM, 203; TGG, 174-75, where Mahdi Qoli is given in place of “Ali Qoli.

146 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 good faith and to refrain from further attacks on the Yukhari-bash. Two months later the boy was returned to his father in token of the Vakil's trust, >” which Hosayn Qoli was yet again to betray. First, however, he became involved in hostilities with his old allies the Turkman. This seems to have begun when Hosayn Qoli, in answer to a call for help from his former host Allah Verdi Khan of Jajorm, made one of the forced marches for which he and his father were famous and routed an army of Turkman raiders. Two hundred of them were killed in battle and no prisoners were spared. The Turkman, however, continued their forays, encouraged and bribed by Mirza ‘Ali Khan Develu, who at last saw his chance to be revenged on the Qoyunlu chieftain in his present difficulties .** Hosayn Qoli not only held his own against the Turkman but also, according to Reza Qoli Khan, made a last assault on Astarabad, from which he was repulsed by the governor and populace.>” It would seem that much of his fifth colum had by now deserted him. One night soon after his latest operation--probably in the spring of 1191/1777--as he was sleeping in the open, he was murdered by a few Turkman under the noses of his guards, either in revenge for their comrades or in return for a reward from Mirza 'Ali Khan. 7? He was buried in Astarabed, doubtless to the great relief of the majority of the populace and certainly of Karim Khan, though he condoled most kindly with Agha Mohammad on his loss. His death had one immediate sequel that must have guaranteed him a contented rest and showed that the Qoyunlu as a body were not yet ready to lie down. Though there was no actual evidence to connect Mirza 'Ali with the murder, Mortaza Qoli While in Astarabad hinted his suspicions to a discontented gholam of the Develu governor, who thereupon shot his master dead. In the ensuing uproar Mortaza Qoli and his companions got safely away to Nawkanda .72 9.7 AGHA MOHAMMAD KHAN

There are almost as many anecdotes and legends about Agha Mohammad's period of

captivity in Shiraz as there are about his reign in Tehran. Many of them enjoy 37. MN, 314; RSN IX, 107. 38. MN, 314; RSN IX, 106-8.

39. Ibid., 109.

40. TGG, 174; Saru'i, 27a-b; MN, 314; RSN IX, 112; Rostam, 362-63. Several

versions exist of the manner, place, and date of his death. According to Reza Qoli Khan, he was stabbed or speared at Fandarask in 1189/1775; the E*temad olSaltana states that he was killed on the steppe by a Goklen in league with his

Develu enemies; Rostam ol-Hokama&' (361), like Farhad Mirza in the Jam-e Jam (cited in MN, 315), claims that Karim Khan bribed or threatened the (Yomud) Turkman to

assassinate him; Nafisi (41), that he was shot by Yomud bribed by the Develu governor. The dates given vary from 1188 to 1192, the month, where mentioned, being Safar. I am inclined to agree with MN in the choice of Safar 1191/March-April 1777, as given by Saru'i (27b), especially since Ghaffari gives the date of Zaki's last expedition as spring 1190. 41. RSN IX, 113, 116.

42. Ibid., 114-15.

The Qajar Revival 147 the common theme of real or imagined insult giving cause for a later vindictive revenge, and not a few are directly contradictory though evidently referring to the same occasion. All of them, whether from Qajar or other sources, conspire to reveal the eunuch khan at every stage of his adult life as a creature of extraordinarily deep-rooted and long-lasting malice channelled by a single-minded megalomania and undoubted political ability into implacable enmity toward his host and benefactor the Vakil and all his family. By all accounts he was treated more as a guest than a prisoner throughout his sixteen years at Karim's court, despite his open resentment. By his own admission to his nephew Fath 'Ali, he used to rip up with his dagger the rug on which he sat each moming for breakfast with the Vakil, who continued nevertheless to ignore this as natural rancor and ordered the servants to lay a new rug each day .79 The eunuch did not, however, allow such senseless spite to prevail over a calculating sense of self-preservation and long-term political expediency, though even in this he judged others by the standards of his own petty vindictiveness. Fath 'Ali Shah used also to tell how, as the five-year-old Baba Khan during his few months in Shiraz as a hostage for his father Hosayn Qoli, he was treated by the Vakil as his own son and set to play with the other boy princes of the Zand court. One day he was matched in a wrestling bout against Karim's nephew, the six-year-old Lotf ‘Ali Khan--the same who, as the last Zand ruler, was cruelly done to death by Agha Mohammad when he captured him eighteen years later (see Epilogue). Since Baba Khan seemed to be getting the better in the tussle, Agha Mohammad furtively signaled to

him to throw the fight; Karim noticed this and reproached the Qajar mildly for teaching the boy deceitfulness. He encouraged the young Baba Khan to win and sat him on his knee with a congratulatory kiss. “4 Of all anecdotes that compare the

characters of the first Zand and the first Qajar ruler, this is surely the most eloquent. Agha Mohammad laid by a store of grudges from the time of his exile in Shiraz

Which he paid off later, not only on the last scions of the Zand family but even on obscure Shiraz tradesmen who had once slighted him. An oil-seller (in some accounts a grocer) who had sold him poor-quality goods with the remark that they were good enough for a Qajar was sought out when Agha Mohammad took Shiraz in

1206/1792 and, after a cat-and-mouse conversation, executed. In one version the man retorted scornfully to Agha Mohammad's original remonstrations that the khan could disembowel him when he became king; the eunuch remembered this suggestion

and in due course acted on it.?

43. Ehtesham o1-Molk, 132; Mostawfi, 5; Malcolm, 265. 44, Ehtesham ol-Molk, 132.

45. There are various versions of these stories, employing different combinations of persons, insults, and sequels. In one version, the offending grocer is, to his surprise (and ours) made baqqal-bashi, or head of the grocers' guild (Mostawfi, 5-6).

148 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763~78 That it was not merely memories of Shiraz that provoked him to savage excesses can be seen by numerous instances from his later reign. He was consistently crue2

and arbitrary in his treatment of those under him, being in the habit of disemboweling servants who displeased him and exposing these wretches, still alive, With their entrails wound round their necks, to feed the kites and crows . “© He was "addicted to drinking," as indeed was the Vakil to some extent, and "would forget tomorrow the orders he had given today; and he would roar like a maniac at the sight of the unfortunate beings, frequently his own favorites, whom he had commanded to be sacrificed."*/ One such victim was his vizier, Mirza Ja'far Esfahani (formerly vizier to Karim Khan), whom Agha Mohammad rounded on for no

particular reason at one of his daily dictations. He first hurled a cushion, then his water pipe, then everything else within reach, and finally discharged his pistol at the unfortunate minister. Mirza Ja'far was carried off with a shoulder wound; Agha Mohammad then fell into a drunken sleep and never again referred to

the incident. A few months later the vizier returned to work as if nothing had happened. “®

It seems that his early castration at the hands of ‘Adel Shah (Prologue) and his subsequent captivity in Shiraz permanently embittered him and, by channeling all his energies into working for the establishment of the Qajar dynasty, defeated the very ends they were designed to serve. Sensitive to his deficiency in the man's world of conquest and empire, he exaggerated his devotion to the military arts and the welfare of his army? and his contempt for scribes and civil servants, whom he referred to as milksops (ferni-khwar). Though not illiterate, he was no great reader and seems to have spent his years of captivity chiefly in hunting with his younger brothers or brooding in private .>? For all his savagery, he was recognized as a capable statesman. George Forster, who passed through Sari in the 1780s, before the final overthrow of the Zands, remarks on Agha Mohammad's heavy drinking, “though this habit does not seen

to operate to the prejudice of the people. This chief has the reputation of being attentive to business, and of possessing an extensive capacity, which is indeed obvious to common notice, throughout all parts of his government.'?/ This capa-~ city is said to have been respected by Karim Khan, who during his captivity called him his "Piran-e Vaysa,'' a reference to one of Afrasiyab's generals known for his sagacity.°” Stories that the Vakil would have sent Agha Mohammad rather than his brother to govern Damghan, had not his vizier Mirza Ja'far advised against it,”> may 46. Watson, 66-67. 47. Kotzebue, 256.

48. Ibid., 256-58. 49. Cf. Nafisi, 55-57. 50. Mostawfi, 5; Pakravan, 27. 51. Forster I, 198. 52. Ehtesham o1-Molk, 132.

53. Pakravan, 52-53.

The Q@ajar Revival 149 perhaps be discounted together with other Qajar hyperbole, but it remains likely that Agha Mohammad encouraged Hosayn Qoli Khan in his bid for independence while

astutely excusing his actions to the Vakil. At the height of his nephew's rebel- ~ lion he is said to have fled in fear for his skin to the sanctuary of an emanzada, but Karim reassured him that he would not be the object of a reprisal.>" It seems unlikely that Agha Mohammad, being something of a statesman as well as a butcher, would have countenanced Hosayn Qoli's excesses against the Develu Qajars, particularly as his own first concern on escaping to Mazandaran was to reconcile the two

branches in order to weld the Qajars into a united opposition to the Zands. He seems to have combined in his person his brother's cruelty and his father's political ability, together with a broader view and a dark tenacity of purpose all his own; and it seems surprising that Karim, who despite his habitual mildness could be ruthless when necessary, as has been seen, failed to recognize in him the greatest danger to Zand rule. The relative freedom accorded to him as a hostage, and particularly his regular hunting trips, which would sometimes take him away from Shiraz for several

days, facilitated his escape on the Vakil's demise. This was not only a chance to restore Qajar fortunes but a life-or-death necessity, for he could expect no mercy from men like Zaki Khan, who would soon enough be massacring their fellow Zands. As Karim's health deteriorated, Agha Mohammad's aunt, the mistress of the Vakil's harem, kept him informed of developments through the agency of a page, Solayman Khan Qajar. Agha Mohammad mounted up and left the city, ostensibly on a hunting

expedition, but in reality to collect his relatives and adherents and wait until word arrived that the Vakil had breathed his last. This arrived in the evening of 13 Safar 1193/2 March 1779, and next morning the exile and his companions set off on the long, hard ride to Mazandaran, >» taking up the slack of the Qajar destiny in readiness to weave more than a century of belated glory. 54. MN, 314. 55. Saru'i, 29b-30b; Esfahani, 6a-b; Mostawfi, 6; Malcolm, 157-58.

IO The Persian Gulf

10.1 THE GENERAL SITUATION

Behind the gorges of the Kuhgiluya, Tangestan, and Lar, a few days' journey from the Vakil's capital, stretched the thousand-mile Iranian coastline of the Gulf. The shores and islands of both sides were dominated by local Arab families who

asserted their territorial pretensions and supplemented their fishing, pearling, and trading profits by occasional acts of brigandage or piracy against their fellows and their inland neighbors. They owed allegiance, often merely nominal, to inland rulers such as the Imam of Muscat and Oman on the Arabian side and the Khan

of Lar in Iran, the latter in turn holding his authority as beglerbegi from the Shah when the latter was strong enough to assert overall suzerainty. From early Safavid times this pattern had been augmented by the presence of European colonial and commercial powers who vied with each other to obtain favorable concessions

from the local rulers and their overlords and at times outdid their "pirate" competitors in seizing territory and intimidating neighbors. Nader Shah had continued the Safavid policy of favoring European traders with

an eye to using their naval cooperation to extend his authority more directly over the waters of the Gulf. He had realized, moreover, that this policy was unsatisfactory in that it left Iran too dependent upon the foreigners' caprices, and so he set about constructing his own permanent navy with reluctant British help. Two ships of 400 tons and twenty guns were bought from the East India Company as well as numerous boats from Arab neighbors. Artisans and timber were brought all the way from Mazandaran and at least three ships were laid down at Bushire on European

lines, But the conqueror's death interrupted this important undertaking, the only results of which were two of his purchased vessels, the Rahmant and the Fayz-e Rabbant, lying derelict in the harbor of Bandar ‘Abbas for several years afterwards .- For some time after Nader's death this abortive navy still captured the imagination of his would-be successors: Ebrahim Mirza, Shahrokh Shah, and in turn Karim Khan and his beglerbegi of the Garmsir each sent a diploma to Molla 'Ali Shah as governor of Bandar 'Abbas and admiral (daryabegi), accompanied by instructions to take good care of the "Eleet .1"7

Nader's other attempts to subdue the petty tyrants of the Gulf had little 1. See Lockhart, Wadir Shah, 213-15; Vadala, 17; Nash'at, 659-62. 2. GD VI, 31 October 1747; VII, 25 and 27 February 1755. 150

The Persian Gulf 151 more success. His first seaborne campaign against Julfar and Oman in 1737 was defeated on landing. A further expedition to Muscat under Taqi Khan Shirazi took advantage of a rebellion against the imam to capture the town, and some time later the fortress; but the Iranians were again ejected in 1744.° In 1736 Taqi Khan had also taken Bahrayn from Shaykh Jabbara of the Huwala

Arabs , who had held it since late Safavid times; this was likewise lost when the Iranians left the Oman coast. In about 1752 it was retaken by Shaykh Naser of Bushire, whom Nader had apparently appointed his viceroy of the archipelago, in an expedition undertaken jointly with his rival Mir Nasir Za'tabi of Bandar Rig and with the ‘Otobi clan of the Huwala Arabs.” Mir Nasir's sons, Mir Hosayn and Mir Mohanna, soon gained the controlling interest for themselves, but were in turn ejected by a Huwala tribe (probably the 'Otobi) who not long afterwards yielded again to Shaykh Naser of Bushire. He seems to have retained nominal sovereignty over the islands, despite intermittent Huwala assaults--at least from 1769 on, after the death of his great rival, Mir Mohanna--until his own death fourteen years later. About that time, in 1782, Bahrayn was reconquered by the 'Otub.> It cannot be maintained, however, that the Vakil exercised real authority over any of the islands claimed in his name. Even the petty rulers of the mainland ports, who were vulnerable to his punitive campaigns, accorded him at best a marginal compliance interrupted by outbreaks of defiance. Niebuhr, who had experienced the bedouin of the Arabian interior, described the coastal Arabs of both Sides of the Gulf as "just as jealous in defense of their freedom as their bretkren in the desert. Almost every little town has its independent shaykh, to whon they pay virtually no tribute." Not even the great Nader Shah had managed to subdue them for long: at the approach of an Iranian army they would push off in their boats to the safety of an offshore island.’ They were proud of their tribal ancestry and Sunni in religion, and on these grounds did not intermarry with their Iranian neighbors. An exception was the Za'abi family of Bandar Rig: Mir Nasir's father had turned Shi'i and married an Iranian girl,® though, as will be seen, this made no difference to their largely hostile relationship with the Vakil. The chief sources of income for these shaykhs and their subjects were fishing, pearling (in the case of Bahrayn and Kharg), and commerce with their neighbors in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and on the Madras coast. This

3. Niebuhr, Arabiten, 298, 300-303; Lockhart, "The Iranian Campaigns in Oman," 157-71; Nadir Shah, 215-22; Nashtat, 319 ff. 4. SP 97/36 (1753; unfoliated); Brieven 2756 (1757), Kharg, 52-53; Niebuhr, Arabien, 316-17. 5. Lorimer, 837; G. N. Curzon II, 232; Wilson, 245; Nash'at, 318-19, 470-71. BP XXX, 5 November 1766, has a report from Bushire dated 28 September to the effect that thirty boatloads of Huwala Arabs were beaten off from an attempted landing on Bahrayn. For the term Huwwala, see 10.2. 6. Niebuhr, Arabien, 311.

7. Ibid., 317; Carmelites, 671. 8. Niebuhr, Arabien, 311, 317.

152 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 involved a certain degree of jostling for territories, commodities, and routes, commonly described as piracy and directed with little discrimination against Arab, Persian, Turkish, Indian, British, French, and Dutch shipping. Each shaykh had his own small fleet, which consisted for the most part of "trankeys" (shallowdraught rowed boats) supplemented by one or two "gallivats" or "galleots" (kaltyat, larger vessels with a sail as well as oars) and, in the case of the more affluent rulers, several "grabs" (Arabic ghorab, "raven," so called from their sleek and Sinister silhouette, with two or three masts and a sharp prow); grabs were the largest and swiftest of the local lateen-rigged vessels. Their cannon, unless salvaged or captured from a European ship, were generally of small calibre, the naval equivalent of the army's zanburaks. The Europeans, having in general larger and better-armed vessels, suffered relatively slightly on the high seas, but their shore stations were often more vulnerable to intimidation and sometimes direct attack. 10.2 DECLINE OF THE LOWER GULF PORTS

The chief groups of these coastal Arabs were the Qawasem and the Huwala, both centered on the lower reaches of the Gulf. The former, commonly known by the vernacular forms as Jawasem and Jawasmi, were originally the followers of one Shaykh

Qasem of Sharja, but the term came to be applied loosely to all the tribes of the coastal strip between Qatar and Ra's al-Khayma, then known as Julfar. Their activities were confined principally to their own side of the Gulf, where they were alternately in alliance or at war with their neighbor the Imam of Muscat and Oman, according as their interests dictated. In 1760 they concluded peace with him and in this same year began to infiltrate the large island of Qeshm, on the opposite Side of the Strait of Hormuz, and part of the mainland near Bandar Lenga.” Qeshm and Hormuz were at this time held by Shaykh ‘Abdollah of the Banu Ma'in and owed nominal allegiance to Molla 'Ali Shah, who had long been the official governor of Bandar "Abbas 2° In 1761 the shaykh brought more Banu Ma'in families from Charak, 150 miles west of Bandar ‘Abbas, and, thus reinforced, cooperated with the governor to repel the Qawasem. In this way they were largely successful, though in 1765 the interlopers still had a foothold on part of Qeshm. +4 Molla 'Ali Shah's immediate neighbors were the Huwala Arabs, apparently a blanket term for all the tribes of the Banader region, between Bushire and Bandar tAbbas . 24 For all his status as admiral of Nader Shah's phantom fleet ‘Ali Shah's actual navy, including three large ships at Hormuz, was never fit to put to sea,t? whereas the Huwala were mobile for the length of the lower Gulf and raided harbors

9. GD XIII, 8 December 1760; Wilson, 199-200; Nash'at, 196. 10. GD XII, 24 December 1761.

6A 11. Niebuhr, Arabien, 313; Lorimer, 633; Wilson, 200-201; Sadid ol-Saltana, , 12. Niebuhr, Arabien, 314; Amin, 27.

13. Ives, 202.

The Perstan Gulf 153 at will 14 During these early years of the interregnum, Molla 'Ali Shah found it advisable to cooperate with the British and Dutch "factories" (trading stations) at Bandar ‘Abbas, since they could afford him assistance not only against pirate attacks but against rivals on the mainland, which in this anarchic period was his main concern. In March 1748 Ebrahim Mirza's appointee as sardar of the Banader and Lar, Mirza Abu Taleb, arrived at Bandar ‘Abbas to lend military aid. His warm reception of Shaykh 'Abdollah and cold shoulder turned to Molla 'Ali Shah caused both the latter and the East India Company agent to suspect that the sardar was

plotting a bid for independence aided by the local Arabs, so 'Ali Shah, the British, the Dutch, and the townspeople combined to drive him out.2° Even after Karim Khan had become established in Shiraz, Bandar ‘Abbas and its dependencies were cut off from direct dealings with the Vakil by the powerful and virtually independent Nasir Khan of Lar. His relations with Molla 'Ali Shah and the Europeans, especially the East India Company, were superficially cordial, but

his personal visits to the port were prompted by his insatiable requisitions of money, cloth, gunpowder, and other commodities rather than concern for its security

and prosperity. In their struggle to dominate the towns and trade routes of the Banader, Karim and Nasir Khan contributed to the economic ruin of the region.?° After one such visit by Nasir in 1752, the East India Company seriously considered abandoning Bandar ‘Abbas for one of the islands, but the project was deferred.!/ Early in 1760, when the Dutch had already left Bandar 'Abbas for Kharg, the question was raised again. After rejecting the old Portuguese base of Hormuz, Agent Douglas toured the islands and ports between Bandar ‘Abbas and Basra during 1761,

prospecting for an alternative site. Early the following year he finally recommended Bushire, where the company settled in 1763 with the blessing of the ruling shaykh and of Karim Khan.2®

The move came not a moment too soon: in February 1760 the Bandar 'Abbas area

had erupted into full-scale warfare that lasted for several years. It began wita a mutiny of the garrison on Hormuz, which spread to the fortress on the mainland and forced Molla 'Ali Shah to flee to Qeshm or one of the other islands. Nasir Khan Lari sent a force under his brother, Ja'far Khan, who persuaded the mutineers to surrender the fort, but the trouble did not end there. While Hormuz was still in ferment, the situation was further complicated by the Qawasem or other Julfar Arab raiders, who late in Jume attacked Bandar ‘Abbas itself. Ja'far Khan's men counterattacked, and the raiders were driven ofe.1? 14, #.g., Charak in 1751 (GD VI, 9 May 1751). 15. GD VI, 18 March 1748; Brieven 2640 (1750), Gombroon, 87-88; cf. Amin,

° 6. Cf. Brteven 2696 (1753), Basra, 26-29; 2777 (1757), Gombroon I, 25, ard Memoir van Gamrun, 8-9.

17. Lorimer, 91. For Nasir Khan and the EIC's coastal interests, see also

7.7 and 15.5. 18. Lorimer, 92-93; Wilson, 178; Amin, 48. For the EIC at Bushire, see 15.5. 19, GD XI, 15 to 18 February, 24 and 25 June 1760.

154 Consoltdatton and Expanston, 1763-79 A struggle now developed for possession of Qeshm, Hormuz, and Nader's two warships anchored off Hormuz, between on the one side the Banu Ma'in and their Charak allies aided by Nasir and Ja'far Khan Lari and the Imam of Muscat and on the other the Qawasem, supported in the main by Molla 'Ali Shah. 27 Ja'far Khan

behaved like a regular freebooter, joining the Banu Matin to plunder cargo vessels as they lay in harbor, under the pretext of denying loot to the Qawasem. “4 Such troubles lasted off and on until at least the late 1760s, when Karim Khan's defeat of Nasir Khan Lari enabled him to appoint his own governor to Bandar ‘Abbas to subdue both the Qawasem and Shaykh 'Abdollah (10.5).

The transfer of the Dutch and British factories from the lower to the upper Gulf is a reflection of the shift in the political and commercial center of gravity. Even in Nader's time the relative decline of Isfahan and Kerman in the shadow of Mashhad had robbed Bandar 'Abbas of its former importance, and, with the establishment of the Vakil's capital at Shiraz, the nearest and most natural port, and the one Karim could more readily control, became Bushire. Since the previous century this had been in the hands of a family of the Mataresh Arabs from Oman. 22 Karim Khan's contemporary here was Shaykh Naser ebn Mazkur, who on the mainland

extended his domains northward and eastward into the Dashtestan and Tangestan regions bordering on the Garmsir of Fars, while at sea he not only traded extensively With Arabia, Muscat, and India but combined his large fleet--including ships that were to have formed the nucleus of Nader's navy--with his easily mobilized Arab army, to dominate Bahrayn. About 1755 he was summoned to Shiraz and imprisoned by the Vakil, who required him to answer for Nader's ships and to pay 5000 tumans on account of his Bahrayn revenues. He was soon released and reinstated, however, leaving his son as a hostage in Shiraz, and cooperated loyally with the Zands un-

til his death four years after that of the Vakil. He left his son, of the same name, a treasury of £2 million (at 1890s rates) and a legacy of loyalty to the declining Zands which unfortunately gave out in the general desertion of Lotf ‘Ali Khan, the last of that house. “* 10.3 THE RISE OF MIR MOHANNA

Some forty miles north of Bushire lies the smaller port of Bandar Rig, which at the time of Nader's death was ruled by Mir Nasir Za'abi,“* said to be a descendent of Banu Sa'b settlers who, like the Mataresh, originated in Oman; as mentioned, he had been converted to the Shi'i faith. According to Niebuhr, he cooperated with 20. GD XII, 22 December 1760. 21. GD XIII, 19 March 1762; cf. Amin, 46.

22. Niebuhr, Arabten, 315-16; G. N. Curzon II, 232. The latter states that

they were alternatively reputed to be of the Abu Mohayri tribe of Nejd. 23. G. N. Curzon II, 232; Lorimer, 111. 24. For Za°abi, see Beer, XVII. Other versions of this nesba occur in the chronicles (e.g., Vagha'i, Raghabi, Raghaé'i) evidently due to variant readings in the manuscripts.

The Perstan Gulf 155 the Shaykh of Bushire in the conquest of Bahrayn in 1752 or 1753, leaving his eldest son Hosayn there to look after his interests, but on the mainland he occasionally feuded with his neighbor Shaykh Naser.” His jurisdiction included the island of Kharg, which lies about 25 miles distant: it measures only 6 miles along its north-south axis and is about half as broad, and at that time boasted only a small fishing village of about a hundred souls on its northeastern corner and several Shi'i shrines, including the reputed tomb of the Imam Mohammad ebn olHanafiya.~° This was the setting for one of the most curious episodes in the

history of the cuis.27 Early in 1753 Baron Kniphausen, an energetic and ambitious Prussian in the services of the Dutch East India Company, was expelled from his residency of Basra by the machinations of the Ottoman governor (motasallem) and, perhaps, the East India Company resident and his own second-in-command. Determined to turn the tables on his adversaries, he took advantage of an offer made earlier by Mir Nasir

and, with the support of his superiors at Batavia, returned with three ships that same November and established a strong Dutch base on Kharg. He immediately blockaded the Shatt ol-'Arab and detained merchant vessels heading for Basra, so successfully that within eight months the motasallem, under pressure from the pasha of Baghdad, returned the sum he had extorted from Kniphausen and begged him to re-

turn to Basra.7° The baron politely declined and began to develop Kharg into a Miniature Dutch colony by attracting Armenian and Iranian merchants to its expanding warehouses.

Mir Nasir's eldest son, Hosayn, was still on newly conquered Bahrayn, and the younger son, Mohanna, Seized this chance to murder his father and gain control of Bandar Rig. His elder brother returned and, financed by the Dutch, drove out the parricide and established himself at the port. Still threatened by Mohanna, he maintained good relations with both the Dutch and the British (who in 1755 established a trading post at Bandar Rig). By then Karim Khan, having subjugated the Kuhgiluya and Tangestan, was ready to intervene directly in the affairs of the littoral and had both the feuding Za'abi brothers detained in Shiraz for the next

25. Arabten, 316-17. 26. Abdul Qadir, 33; Khosravi, 1-17. The name also occurs in the Arabicized

form Kharej.

27. The principal sources for the Dutch occupation of Kharg, and for Mir Mohanna's activities, are: the OIC records dated 1754-70 (&rteven 2716, 2735, 2755, 2756, 2762, 2777, 2801, 2829, 2860, 2888, 2890, 2895, 2919, 2956, 2984, 3048, 3051, 3076, 3142); the EIC records 1753-69 (GD VII-VIII, FR XVI, BP XXVII-XXXII);

the Carmelite Chronicle I, 667-70, 689-93; Niebuhr, Arabten, 316-17, 321-26 and Reise II, 182-96; Ives, 211-14; TGG, 161-68; GM, 152-54. For a detailed account of these episodes, see my 'Mir Muhanna and the Dutch." The following summary is centered on Karim Khan's efforts to control the upper Gulf littoral; for his commercial and diplomatic relations with the British and Dutch at this period, see 15.5-7. 28. French translations of their exchanges are preserved in the French consular correspondence (ANP, B1.175: undated, placed between letters dated 25 September and 26 October 1755).

156 Consolidatton and Expanston, 1763-79 year. When they returned in April 1756, they were apparently reconciled.?° The European traders, however, remained on the alert: Kniphausen augmented his PrusSian garrison with Arab and Turkish auxiliaries and the East India Company's Agent Wood, suspicious of both his neighbors, temporarily left Bandar Rig in June. He returned next month to find that Mir Mohanna had killed his brother and fifteen Other relatives and was firmly established as ruler of the port. In November he deported Wood and his staff at gunpoint, keeping two barrels of gunpowder. -2 Over the next few years Mir Mohanna preyed on shipping and overland commerce Within range of Bandar Rig, that is, between Ganava, Bushire, Lavar, and Kangan.

News of his atrocities--drowning two of his sisters, burying alive any daughters born to him, cutting off his men's ears and noses for minor misdemeanors--made him the terror of the whole Gulf. Karim Khan again arrested him in October 1757, in the course of a successful expedition to subdue Qa'ed Haydar, the ruler of Bandar Ganava. Mir Mohanna, as usual, put to sea on the Zand army's approach. But the Vakil surrounded Bandar Rig and issued an ultimatum: if he did not surrender in three days, the town would be sacked. Mir Mohanna gave himself up and was imprisoned. Next year, however, when the Vakil left Shiraz in pursuit of the Qajars, he reinstated Mir Mohanna on the intercession of an influential Tangestani officer, Mohammad Beg Khurmuji, who was married to one of the pirate's surviving sisters.

During the Vakil's campaigns in the north, his viceroy Sadeq several times sent forces against Bandar Rig, but each time Mir Mohanna either beat them off or retired offshore in his boats.~4 In April 1759 Mir Mohanna was intercepted by a Dutch gunboat while attacking

a vessel bound for Basra and was beaten off. So far these two had apparently avoided direct confrontation, but now the gage was down. ‘The Dutch maintained good relations with Bushire, and in addition cultivated the friendship of Qa'ed Haydar, Mir Mohanna's rival at Ganava; early in 1760 gunboats drove off a siege of Ganava by Mir Mohanna's men. Mir Mohanna's father had already been at loggerheads with Shaykh Naser, his chief trading rival, and this was exacerbated when Bushire, and not Bandar Rig as planned, became the Dutch East India Company's

Mainland pied 4 terre and supplier. In 1762 Karim Khan, victorious in the north, announced his intention to pacify the Gulf littoral with a proposal for joint Irano-Dutch action against Bandar Rig. Mir Mohanna, now at war with all his neighbors, responded with increased aggression: raiding farther inland, he robbed two caravans on the Bushire-Shiraz road, and at Easter 1762 mounted an umsuccessful invasion of Kharg.*” All this coincided with the warfare around Bandar ‘Abbas

29. TGG, 161; Brieven 2777 (1757), Kharg I, 4-5; Niebuhr, Arabien, 317. 30. GD VIII, 26 May, 21 and 24 July, 4 December 1756; Brteven 2755 (1756), 15-17; 2829 (1759), Kharg, 5-9. 31. TGG, 161-62; Niebuhr, Arabien, 317-18. 182 3Z. Brteven 2956 (1763), 26-27; 2984 (1764), Kharg I, 60-63; Niebuhr, Retse,

The Persian Gulf 157 (where the Dutch in 1759 and the British in 1763 abandoned their factories), with Sadeq Khan's campaign against Nasir Khan of Lar (7.8), with the first assaults by Ottomans and Zands on the quasi-autonomous Ka'b state in lower Khuzestan, and counterraids by the Ka'b on shipping in the upper Gulf, especially at Bahrayn. The period 1759-63, when Karim Khan was occupied in Mazandaran and Azerbaijan, was

one of universal insecurity and disintegration for the Gulf and its hinterland. 10.4 SUBJUGATION OF TANGESTAN AND DASHTESTAN

For the next two years, Mir Mohanna maintained an uneasy truce with the Dutch, being more intent on fortifying Bandar Rig against the expected onslaught of Karim Khan. This at length materialized in winter 1765 under the command of Amir Guna Khan, who first subdued Khurmuj and remained there inactive (except for extortim

of ''taxes") for three months. His similar "pacification'' of Lavar in the Tangestan brought him little cooperation from the local rulers and populace.” Moreover, neither Shaykh Naser nor the East India Company, who had both promised to help blockade Bandar Rig, had a single ship lying offshore when, in June, Mir Mohanna found it wise to embark with his family, baggage, and a hard core of cut-

mile from Kharg. , throats, to the shelter of Khargu (Khowairej), a barren islet lying less than a

Buschmann, the Dutch chief, far from intervening, even allowed Mir Mohanna's Sheep to graze on Kharg. During the desultory naval operations of the following week, while Mir Mohanna's gallivats ran rings around the East India Company cruiser and the Bushire fleet (and even found time to capture some Bushahri merchant ships on their way to Bahrayn), Amir Guna Khan sat contentedly in deserted Bandar Rig and declined to furnish troops for a landing on Kharg, and Buschmann confined

his activities to firing midnight cannonades "to give the combatants something to think about.'"*4 By October, however, Mir Mohanna had Bushire under strict blockade and the resulting stoppage of Dutch trade and provisions persuaded Buschmamn's

inexperienced successor, Pieter Houtingh, to renew hostilities. A landing on Kharg by a detachment of the Dutch garrison and five hundred nen of Bushire was repulsed with heavy losses to the Dutch. Mir Mohanna followed up this success by landing in force on Kharg and besieging the fortress. Completely cut off, Houtingh decided to negotiate. On New Year's Day 1766 he went out with a small delegation and was taken captive by Mir Mohanna; the fort and town capitulated, the Dutch were shipped off via Bushire to Batavia, and Mir Mohanna was left in possession of the stoutest fortress and richest warehouse in the Gulf. He had also retained, or regained, control of Bahrayn; and since Amir Guma Khan had retired from his useless prize of Bandar Rig, the Za'abi chief sent a detachment to repossess his mainland patrimony.

33. Niebuhr, Arabien, 317; Reise, 100-101, 104-5, 165, 180, 184. 34. Niebuhr, Reise, 186; cf. FR XVI, 841 (3 March 1765); Amin, 76-77.

158 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 In April 1766 Karim Khan sent a force of two thousand men to besiege Bandar Rig, commanded by his cousin Zaki. In May he again reduced Bandar Ganava, but Rig

itself still held out and the Zand army, once more denied naval help by the East India Company (15.5), retired to Shiraz. In August 1768 the Vakil sent another army--yet again disappointed by the uncooperativeness of the East India Company's Agent Moore--and, with the help of the Bushire fleet, managed to maintain a damaging winter blockade at Bandar Rig. By early 1769 the hardships of the siege and Mir Mohanna's continuing brutality had turned some of his leading kinsmen against him. On 26 January the pirate chief was surprised by a hostile mob while in the bazaar and barely escaped with his loyal bodyguard in a small boat. The leader of the mutineers, one Hasan Soltan, at once took control of-Kharg in the name of Karim Khan and informed the Iranians of the coup. A party of Zaki's soldiers landed and the pirate's booty was handed over to them. The Vakil showed his habitual clemency and statesmanship by handing back the bulk of the spoils to Hasan Soltan and appointing him ruler of Bandar Rig with the title of khan. No reprisals were taken against the inhabitants either of Kharg or of Bandar Rig. Kharg was garrisoned by a body of Iranian infantry and remained from then on under Zand control. Mir Mohanna meanwhile, after a 140-mile voyage in a small boat without proVisions, landed in a creek near Basra on.17 February. He was discovered by patrols and haled before the motasallem; his plea for asylum was rejected, and at midnight on 24 March 1769 the one-eyed parricide who for fifteen years had terrorized the upper Gulf was strangled, his head being sent to the pasha and his body thrown to the dogs .>>

Kharg slipped back into the poverty and obscurity of the days before the Dutch (who never returned to the Gulf). Bandar Rig, its defenses demolished by successive Iranian armies and the independent Za'abi spirit gone with Mir Mohanna, entirely lost its importance as a port to Bushire.~° Zaki Khan completed his pacification of the coast by descending on Shaykh Hajar of Kangan, a minor Mir Mohanna, who after some skirmishing was sent to Shiraz in chains, together with his henchmen, and executed.°’ The ports that served Shiraz were now secure, and it was time to deal with the lower Gulf. 10.5 WAR WITH OMAN

Although the Imam of Oman had been very much on the defensive during the reign of Nader Shah, his policy toward Iran was apt to be more aggressive at times when a weak shah ruled. In 1717, during the reign of Shah Soltan Hosayn, Sayf ebn Soltan II, with the help of the Qawasem and Arabs from Qatar, had seized Bahrayn, Larak, 35. FR XVI, 1006; BP XXXII, 20 May 1769; Carmelites, 670. See also Rostan, 397-98; Tafrashi, 217a; Parsons, 197; Malcolm, 136; Wilson, 182; Amin, 99-100.

36. Cf. Kinneir, 111; Monteith, "Notes on the Routes,'' 108.

37. TGG, 168; GM, 154; Carmelites, 668.

The Perstan Gulf 159 and Qeshm and had laid determined siege to Hormuz; the Portuguese failed to provide a transport fleet for the Iranian army, and the Omanis had to be bought oft 28 The Imam Ahmad, who acceded in 1749, judged that with Iran in chaos after the death of Nader he might be able to seize Nader's capital ships lying off Hormuz. In the summer of 1752, Molla 'Ali Shah was alarmed by a rumor that the Imam had

fitted out two or three large ships to come and take his fleet, but the threat apparently did not materialize.~” Troubles with unruly Julfar neighbors probably intervened, for early in 1752 the Imam had sent presents of eight black slaves, two mares, and quantities of lump sugar to Nasir Khan Lari, with the request for a thousand men to assist him against rebellious Arabs .“° In 1767 or 1768 he managed in any case to "buy'' the Rahmant from Shaykh ‘Abdollah of the Banu Matin, who was of greater account in Hormuz than the daryabegi. In the autum of 1769, having just secured the upper Gulf, Karim Khan took the initiative against Oman by demanding tribute on the same terms as had been inposed by Nader and the return of the Ralnant, which had been sold without his con-

sent. This the imam rejected, intimating that "Nader Shah . . . and Carem Caun - « «. Were powers widely different; the one they dreaded, the other they rather despised; . . . if, therefore, Carem Caun thought proper to persist in his demands, they would answer him by cannon and by bali." From then on Iran and Oman were

at war. Isolated skirmishes and acts of piracy were at first the limit of hostilities, as when two coffee ships from Sur were seized by the Iranians on their way to Basra; and in 1770 the Imam's fleet with an army on board appeared off Bushire, but was unable to effect a landing. *? According to reports from the East India Company at Basra early in 1774, an Iranian war fleet had set sail against Muscat, but had been engaged by the motasallem's navy and shattered. "> This evidently refers to the craft requisitioned for Zaki Khan's force at Hormuz (10.6). This, the motasallem's own version, may well be greatly exaggerated; the Persian chroniclers do, however, charge Solayman Pasha and his superior, the pasha of Baghdad, with giving unspecified assistance to the Omanis during this period, and the East India Company's records confirm that the pasha neglected to fulfill any of the vague promises of assistance he had made in response to the Vakil's overtures." However vulnerable to Iranian threats, Basra's interest obviously lay in supporting Muscat, its natural staging port and entrepot for the Indian import and export trade. Likewise it would be to Karim Khan's advantage to divert shipping from Muscat to Bandar ‘Abbas and Bushire, where his agents would collec: anchorage and transshipment tolls. 38. Lockhart, Safavi Dynasty, 115-16. 39, GD VI, 5 July 1750. 40. GD VI, 15 February 1752. 41. Lorimer, 411-12. 42. Ibid.; FR XVI, 1009 (18 October 1769). 43. SP 97/50 (1774), 36a.

44, TGG, 181-82; GM, 179; MT, 337; FR XVII, 1069 (1 May 1774).

160 Consolidatton and Expanston, 1763-79 Despite the intermittent Zand blockade of Oman-Basra traffic, and the inevitable propaganda warfare, the cross-Gulf transshipment trade was probably little affected. Persian chroniclers claim that Iranian vessels were decoyed into Muscat harbor to be plundered by the heretical Kharijites of Oman, but Abraham Parsons-elsewhere as much a sensationalist as Nami--reports that Iranian ships that normally traded with Oman were allowed in unmolested throughout this time, at least for ready cash transactions .*° In the summer of 1774, just after the Hormuz episode, it was reported that the Imam, having troubles of his own, had bought peace with the Vakil for a present of 200 tumans, or an annual tribute. ”° Some honor was thus salvaged from an otherwise humiliating fiasco. At all events the war was renewed the following year, despite diplomatic tentatives by Haydar 'Ali of the Deccan (15.8), when the Imam sent his fleet, brazenly led by the Rahmant, to the relief of his Basran allies under Zand siege (11.7). Early in 1778, with the Iranians occupying Basra, there were rumors of renewed peace negotiations between the Imam and the vaki1,*” but any such development was cut short by Karim Khan's death in 1779. Thereafter, Oman was to become progressively more dominant in the lower Gulf as Zand control waned: in 1794 commercial control of Bandar ‘Abbas was ceded to Soltan ebn Ahmad for an annual rent of 6000 tumans .*8 10.6 ZAKI KHAN ON HORMUZ

Once he had finally established himself at Shiraz, the Vakil won a measure of direct control over the Straits of Hormuz. In 1766, immediately after the subjugation of Nasir Khan Lari, Hajji Aqa Mohammad Ranani, Karim's capable governor of Isfahan, was sent to reduce Bandar ‘Abbas to order. He tricked into his power the self-willed Shaykh ‘Abdollah and sent him and his family in chains to Shiraz. Apparently chastened, the shaykh was soon afterwards released to govern his people on Hormuz, leaving a son as hostage at Shiraz.7? Hajji Aqa Mohammad, having completed his task, was presumably recalled and a local governor, Shaykh Mohammad Bastaki, waS appointed beglerbegi in Safar 1183/June 1769.°° The Vakil therefore judged Bandar ‘Abbas a reliable enough base from which to launch an amphibious attack on Oman. In Sha'ban 1187/November 1773 he ordered Shaykh Mohammad to supply 3000 man of dates and 5000 of grain for the army now

setting out under Zaki Khan. > Similar requisitions for supplies and vessels were sent to the other Gulf ports, and when Zaki arrived at Bandar ‘Abbas that winter 45. TGG, 175; Parsons, 207. 46. SP 97/50 (1774), 165; FR XVII, 1071. 47. SP 97/54 (1778), 68. 48. Miles, 287. This arrangement was renewed in 1856 and continued until tO 9, Ansari, 227; BP XXIX, 4 November 1766; TGG, 176; GM, 158.

50. Moqtader, 733-34. Bastak is a village of Lar; see FJI VII, 29. S51. Moqtader, 733-34 (copy of a farman of Karim Khan).

The Perstan Guif 161 Shaykh 'Abdollah hastened to offer every assistance. While a guest of the shaykh, Zaki happened to meet--or was artfully informed of--his beautiful daughter 'A'esha and took a fancy to her. The shaykh expressed himself delighted at his request for her hand in marriage and invited the Zand general to honor the ceremony on his island of Hormuz. On the appointed day, Shaykh 'Abdollah ensured that Zaki's escort was small by pleading that his poor Arab hospitality on what Scott Waring aptly described as "a barren rock, destitute of water?” would not extend to more; and ushering them on board the one ship, he sailed out to Hormuz, where the surprised Zaki and his retinue were promptly bundled into a secret prison. On shore his army waited in vain for their general to return with his bride. On realizing what had happened, they found they had not enough boats or local suport to run the gauntlet of the Banu Ma'in galleys to Hormuz and began to disperse. Shaykh ‘Abdollah meanwhile wrote to the Vakil suggesting an exchange of hostages, which Karim had no option but to accept. By May of 1774 'Abdollah's son, Mohammad, had been released, and Zaki returned to Shiraz in disgrace.>” So ended Karim Khan's first attempt to emulate Nader Shah by foreign conquest. Shaykh ‘Abdollah retained his independence, using his daughters again with good effect to secure an alliance with the Imam and to attempt as much with Nasir

Khan Lari: the latter was offered the same 'A'esha who had captivated Zaki, but did not, however, accept.-4 For the rest of his reign, the Vakil was involved with the upper Gulf and Kurdistan, and the Bandar 'Abbas region was allowed to go its own way. 10.7 THE RISE OF THE BANU KA'B

The largest and best-organized of the "pirate" states that the Vakil set himself to subdue was that of the Banu Ka'b. In origin they were said to be a branch of the Banu Khafaja bedouin, who had migrated into lower Iraq in pre-Islamic times and made their name almost a synonym for banditry. Late in the sixteenth or early in the seventeenth century they were settled at Qobban, between Khawr Musa and the

the Shatt ol-'Arab, by one of the Dayri pashas of Basra and rose in their service to dominance over the coastal region. In Nader's reign they took advantage of a revolt by Mohammad Khan Baluch in Shushtar to raid as far as Dawraq on the river

Jarahi, which was soon to become their chief center. Nader dispatched a force to besiege Qobban and the Ka'b sued for terms, accepting for the first time Iranian

suzerainty; but they still found it profitable to aid the pasha against their 92. Waring, 138. 53. TGG, 176-78; GM, 159-60; Fasa'i I, 217; FR XVII, 1071 (18 May 1774); S> 97/50 (1774), 105b; Sadid ol-Saltana, 263-64, 614. Ghaffari claims that on the news of Zaki's capture the governor of Bandar “Abbas (identified as Hajji Aga Mohammad, who had in fact been replaced; see above) sent a fleet to Hormuz, rescued Zaki, and once more sent Shaykh “Abdollah and his family to Shiraz; but this is not borne out by any other account. The EIC letter confirms that the exchange of hostages took place. 54, Sadid ol-Saltana, 613.

162 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 northwestern neighbors the Montafeq. In 1150/1737 Shaykh Tahmaz (or Tahmuz), an Ottoman protégé, was assassinated by two brothers, ‘Othman and Salman Al bu Naser,

whose strong partnership was to raise the fortunes of this obscure marsh tribe to new heights .>>

‘Othman seems to have remained for some time the nominal chief, but Salman

was evidently the driving force behind their policy of expansion. They joined Nader's forces sent to besiege Basra in 1156/1743, as they were to serve Karim Khan thirty years later; and on Nader's death they were able to oust his Afshar vassals from decaying Dawraq, which Shaykh Salman replaced with a flourishing and well-fortified town farther downriver named Falahiya. At the same time they ex-

tended their hold over both sides of the Shatt estuary and northward into Khuzestan, so that by the beginning of Karim Khan's reign their empire comprised a triangular area of about a hundred miles on each side lying roughly between Bubiyan Island, Hendian (Hendejan), and Ahwaz. At Sabela on a branch of the Karun, Salman built a great dam of wood, straw, reeds, and mud, which furnished a reservoir for irrigation; according to al-Shushtari, it was a better job than his own townsmen could have made with stone, and Kinneir, who saw the ruins of this construction in Fath 'Ali Shah's time, was of the opinion that if Karim Khan had not destroyed it the dam would have stood for centuries .”©

For ten years after Nader's death the Ka'b lived in prosperity and relative harmony with their neighbors, content to watch the Al Kathir around Dezful and Shushtar and the Mosha'sha' vali of 'Arabestan at Hawiza weaken each other with constant wars (2.1). Revenues from date plantations and from control of the Karun and overland trade routes enriched their coffers. Though his empire now straddled both Ottoman and Iranian territory, Shaykh Salman paid tribute to neither govern-

ment, pleading in excuse to each the exactions of the other.>/ The inevitable confrontation came in the spring of 1170/1757, when Karim Khan, out of immediate danger from either Azad Khan or Mohammad Hasan Khan, who were fighting in northern

Iran, embarked on a punitive foray aimed jointly at the Kuhgiluya tribes centered on Behbahan and their lowland neighbors, the Ka‘b. ‘The success of this campaign is disputed. According to Ghaffari, the Ka'b got wind of the Vakil's advance three days before he reached Falahiya, so that the Zand army found the region de-

serted and the dikes cut. Our chronicler hastens to assert that these tactics did not save the Ka'b from being pursued, chastised, and plundered; the Ka'b tradition naturally maintains that Karim retired empty-handed, 7° but the most plausible 55. Kasravi, 161-71; al-“Azzawi, “Ash&'er IV, 181; Wilson, 186; Oppenheim

IV part 1, 58-61; Ainsworth, 208-9. For a detailed treatment of the Kab wars, see Perry, "The Banu Kab."

S56. Al-Shushtari, Tazskera, 99; Kasravi, 172-75; Niebuhr, Retse, 227-28; TGG,

126; G. N. Curzon II, 322; Kimeir, 90. Nami attributes the expansion of the Ka°b into Iranian territory to pressure from the motasallem of Basra. Falahiya is now

called Shadagaén; see FJI VI, 228.

57. Kasravi, 143-52, 155; Niebuhr, Reise, 227. 58. GM, 25; Kasravi, 126-27.

The Persian Guif 163 report is that from the East India Company at Basra, to the effect that the Vakil's devastation of the Dawraq region forced Salman to buy him off with three times the sum of 5000 tumans originally demanded .?” In 1758 Shaykh Salman began to build a navy, which soon outstripped that of the Qaputan pasha of Basra: by 1765 it comprised seventy dawnags (flat-bottomed

rowed boats) and ten large eallivats °° With this the Ka'b forces were complete_y amphibious and highly mobile over an area in which they knew every shoal and creek and could blockade the Shatt whenever they chose. They even joined in the general territorial tussle in the Gulf, earning the enmity of Shaykh Sa'dun of Bushire by laying claim to, and raiding, Bahrayn in February of 1761.°1 Over 1761 and 1762 the motasallem, 'Ali Aga, tried vainly to force the Ka'b to pay taxes by blockading the mouth of the Jarahi at Khawr Musa with the reluctant aid of a British ship; the Ka'b simply retired upriver to inaccessible Dawraq, bought off the blockade with presents to the pasha, and as soon as the pressure lifted brought their gunboats back into the Shatt to counterblockade Basra.°” 10.8 OPERATIONS AGAINST THE KA'B, 1763-68

The East India Company at Basra became more actively involved against the Ka'b late in 1763, when the tribesmen appropriated some date groves in which the com-

pany had an interest. Agent Price sent two cruisers to cooperate with an army from Baghdad, but no more progress was made than with the first campaign.°° The following year 'Omar Pasha also involved the Vakil in his schemes: his envoy met Karim at Silakhur, as he made his way southward from Azerbaijan, and the Turkish proposals for a joint campaign against the Ka'b, in which the Pasha would block their western and southern exits and provide boats and supplies to a Zand army from the north, was favorably received.°* The death of the Mosha'sha' vali in 1763 at the hands of Zaki Khan had removed the last check to Ka'b expansion in northern Khuzestan and the only buffer between Ka'b and Zand. The first truly international project for policing the upper Gulf was about to be put to the test. Karim Khan's army set off soon after Nawruz 1178/1765 via Ahwaz, crossing the Karun on 9 Shawwal/1 April to advance steadily into Shaykh Salman's territory. The innumerable channels of the Khuzestan marshlands were bridged with the help of swimmers. The Ka'b hopped from island to island before them, leaving deserted

and boatless villages to the invaders. They again evacuated Falahiya, taking refuge at first in the fortified village of Hafar between the Karun and the Shatt ol-'Arab.°> At Falahiya the Iranians camped to await the promised help from the 59. SP 97/39 (1756-57; unfoliated), Basra, 26 May 1757. 60. Niebuhr, Retse, 228; G. N. Curzon II, 322.

61. Brieven 2919 (1762), Kharg and Gombroon 1761, 4-5. Sa°dun was Shaykh Naéser's viceroy during his sojourn in Shiraz. 62. Kasravi, 177; Saldanha, 156; Lorimer, 1217-18. 63. Lorimer, 1218. 64. TGG, 127; Kasravi, 178-80. 65. Hafar or Haffar; cf. Oppenheim IV part 1, 60 note; FJI VI, 131; Ainsworth, 173.

164 Consolidatton and Expanston, 1763-79 pasha. After three days this had still not appeared, and Shaykh Salman had meanwhile slipped unhindered from Hafar across to the island of Moharrazi (Abadan). The Vakil marched on to deserted Hafar. This, near the site of present-day Khorramshahr, was an ideal base--one hour's march from the Shatt, less than a day's march from either Basra or the head of the Gulf, and directly opposite the northern tongue of Moharrazi Island, their next objective. There was a ready-made anchorage for shipping entering the Karun from the Shatt, and it would have been but the work of a morning for the motasallem to deliver the promised transports and

supplies. Despite this, there arrived only two small boatloads of dates and a decorated barge for the Vakil, with the excuse that rice and grain were in short supply at Basra and that boats ordered from Baghdad had not yet arrived.°° The Persian chroniclers uniformly ascribe ‘Ali Aqa's failure to cooperate to fear of the proximity of an Iranian army to ill-defended Basra. The British, themselves involved in the motasallem's scraping together of a presentable army and navy, were under the impression that the Turks "'really intended to assist the Persians according to their agreement .'"°/ Niebuhr's suggestion that the Ka'b had bribed the motasallem cannot be ruled out °° but the most likely explanation seems sheer tardiness of organization. To some extent the Zand leader offset this disappointment by requisitioning provender and boats from Hawiza and Bushire. Zaki Khan took the largest boat down the Shatt on a reconnaissance of Moharrazi, only to find that the birds had once again flown--off into the open Gulf and probably round to Qobban, where Zaki was loath to follow.°” After six weeks of futile operations in uncongenial swamps, the heat of mid-

May persuaded the Vakil to call off further attempts. He sent a curt letter to the motasallem expressing his dissatisfaction with his infuriating procrastination and informing them that his army was now withdrawing from Hafar. This missive arrived "just as the Mussaleem was embarking the Troops to proceed down the River’? The Vakil returned to the region of Falahiya to deal with the Ka'b in his own way: he had Shaykh Salman's dam demolished, ruining a large area of cultivation. The shaykh responded with alacrity, sending an envoy a few days later with prom-

ises of tribute and hostages if the Vakil would spare the Ka'b, his loyal subjects and fellow Shi'ites, from further destruction. There ensued a correspondence at a distance which secured Karim's withdrawal for a large present, the shaykh's son as hostage, and the promise of 3000 tumans annual tribute.’? As Salman was apparently not required to do obeisance in person, it may be assumed that the Zands were as anxious to leave as the Ka'b to see them go. Shaykh Salman reached a similar compromise with the Turks a few weeks later, 66. TGG, 131-33; GM, 140-41; Niebuhr, Reise, 228-29; Kasravi, 180-82.

67. Lorimer, 1219. 68. Retse, 229.

69. TGG, 133-34; GM, 141. 70. FR XVI, 15 and 17 May 1756; Saldanha, 192; Lorimer, 1219. 71. TGG, 134-36; GM, 142; Kasravi, 183-84; Niebuhr, Reise, 229; Malcolm, 133.

The Perstan Gulf 165 after the Ka'b boats had made fools of the Qaputan pasha's navy much as Mir Mohanna was amusing himself with that of Shaykh Naser at this very same time. The Vakil sent a few thousand of his returning army to reinforce Amir Guna Khan at Bandar Rig’? and returned to Shiraz, never again to pursue the elusive Ka'b. The East India Company, who omitted to have themselves included in the pasha's peace

treaty with the tribe, lost two merchantmen and the resident's yacht to Ka'b pirates in July and, despairing of active Turkish cooperation, launched their own amphibious offensive with reinforcements from Bombay. They suffered heavy losses in men and material to no real effect and withdrew in September, leaving a Turkish force passively observing Dawraq. Meanwhile, Shaykh Salman's son, by dint of extravagant presents, said to have included 2000 tumans in cash, five muleloads of Yichest Madras cloth, and a hundred fine horses, had persuaded the Vakil to intervene on behalf of his loyal subjects. In September Karim Khan obligingly wrote both to Agent Wrench at Basra and to the pasha of Baghdad, pointing out sternly that Dawraq was in Iranian territory and they must withdraw their troops at once or suffer the consequences. The pasha hastened to comply and the British, having

already been driven back to patrolling the Shatt, grimly continued this thankless task./9 Early the following year the Vakil, seeking naval help against the tenacious Mir Mohanna, offered to make the Ka'b pay compensation both to the East India Company and the pasha; but Anglo-Iranian negotiations broke down owing to various

misunderstandings, the fleet which finally arrived to take Kharg missed its rendexvous with the Persian forces at Bushire, and further rich gifts from the Ka'b probably darkened irredeemably Karim's already dim view of the parsimonious East India Company .’4 Then in August of 1768 the Ka'b pressure on all parties was suddenly eased when Shaykh Salman, who had been ill for some time, died.’ Under his thirty-one years of rule the Ka'b had enjoyed considerable prosper-

ity from agriculture, trade, and piracy, despite the occasional expense of buying off enemies who, though they could make damaging inroads, could never hope to subjugate the Ka'b in their marshy fastnesses. Like Mir Mohanna, Shaykh Salman had a combined infantry, cavalry, and navy, which, by choosing its own ground, could be sure of outmaneuvering the cumbersome war machine of Iranians, Ottomans, or

English; and, like that of Mir Mohanna, his little empire faded with him. His successors, Ghanem until 1183/1769 and Barakat until 1197/1783, cooperated readily with the Vakil in his operations against the Omani corsairs and their merchant

72. Niebuhr, Retse, 186, 229-31; Lorimer, 1219. 73. FR XVI, 992, 994 (13 and 17 October 1766), 1002 (7 November 1766). The chief sources for the course of the EIC's operations against the Kab are: FR XV_,

879-1001; BP XXXITI, 14 August 1765, 17 January 1767; SP 97/43 (1766-67), 112; Niebuhr, Reise, 231-32. See also Lorimer, 140, 1220; Wilson, 187; Amin, 85-88; Perry, "The Banu Ka‘b,"' 138-49.

74, FR Private No. 10; BP XXX, 17 November 1767; ANP, B1.175, 27 September

1768; but see 15.5. 75. BP XXIX, 7 September 1768; G. N. Curzon II, 324; Kasravi, 186.

166 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79 shipping and in the siege of Basra, for which Karim Khan is said to have awarded them the town and fields of Hendian. /© Only with the taming of the shaykhs of the Gulf ports and the Ka'b was Karim's way finally clear in 1774 for one last and

nore ambitious project in his policy of controlling the Gulf, a prize that had eluded both Shah 'Abbas and Nader Shah: the conquest of Basra.

76. Kasravi, 186-87.

11 The Siege of Basra

11.1 ANTECEDENTS

The head of the Persian Gulf is the natural focus of foreign trade for both Iraq, with its northern Syrian hinterland, and for western Iran. The broad, sluggish Shatt ol-'Arab channels traffic to and from the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Karun; and the port of Basra, dominating not only this waterway but also the overland routes to both the Arabian and the Iranian sides of the Gulf, was during the first four centuries of Islam perhaps the greatest port in the known world. In the heyday of the ‘Abbasid caliphate Basra brought the silks, spices, and stories of the Indies to the central lands of Islam. Then, with the increasing separation of the Arab and Persian parts of the Eastern Caliphate after the Mongol conquests, this port and its waters at the center of the cleft between them became a bone of contention and a source of friction that has remained constant up to this day. During the greater part of the Middle Ages, the shift of the world trade routes to the southern Mediterranean-Red Sea axis that began with the commercial dominance of the Fatimid Empire and the Italian city-states reduced Basra's impor-

tance to a local scale. With the rise of the European trading empires in India and the Far East, however, the route through the Gulf and around Mesopotamia to Aleppo enjoyed some two centuries of revival, more especially as the fastest communications route (the "direct route'') between Europe and India; and, as part of the Ottoman Empire when Egypt was effectively independent under a mamluk dynasty, Basra regained in the eighteenth century a measure of her importance as an entre-

pot port. | As such she attracted the covetous eyes of both the Safavids and Nader Shah. Shah 'Abbas dispatched an army to take Basra in 1629, which, however, turned back on the news of his death before reaching the walls. In 1695 the Montafeq Arabs

captured Basra from the Turks, but rashly interfered in a family quarrel of their eastern neighbors the Mosha'sha', who drove them out of Basra in 1697; and Sayyed

Farajollah, the Mosha'sha' chief, in his capacity as vali of 'Arabestan, sent the keys of the city to Shah Soltan Hosayn. The Safavid monarch returned them with

presents to the sultan, but for four years Basra remained indirectly in Iranian hands by virtue of the Mosha'sha' occupation. It is interesting to note that, like the Zand occupation, this was facilitated by the pressure of Ottoman 1. See Kasravi, 162-65; Sestini, 194. 167

168 Consolidatton and Expanston, 1763-79 commitments in Europe and by a severe plague in 1690-91, which weakened the town's

resistance.” Nader's first attacks on the Ottoman Empire were directed at Baghdad, in spring and summer of 1733; from this he was compelled to retire unsuccessful, and a projected attack on Basra by combined Banu Lam and Mosha'sha'i forces proved

abortive.” In 1735 he sent a force to cooperate with his admiral, Latif Khan, and his newly created Gulf fleet in an assault on Basra. This was beaten off after a three-day battle on the Shatt in which two British ships, pressed into service by the pasha, played a conspicuous part." In September 1743 Nader sent a force to besiege the town while threatening Baghdad from Mosul with his main army; this was aided by the Ka'b, the Banu Lam, and the Montafeq, while the East India Company

resident, Thomas Dorrill, was forced to sign over the company's brig to the pasha's use. He managed, however, to send secret orders to her master to scuttle her. The besiegers, without heavy artillery, made no impression on the walls and were recalled some three months later. By the treaty of 1746, peace was concluded on a basis of the frontiers of 1693.> 11.2. BAGHDAD AND BASRA ON THE EVE OF THE WAR

Ahmad Pasha, founder of the so-called Mamluk dynasty of Baghdad, who had main-

tained himself in virtual independence of the Porte and had controlled Basra as a

mere sanjaq of his pashalik, died a year after this, as did Nader. The sultan attempted to reassert his authority over his eastern province by dividing the pasha1ik of Baghdad into two, with Basra as a separate province, and to buy the loyalty of Solayman, the former Georgian slave whom Ahmad had made his son-in-law, by appointing him pasha of Basra. But when in 1749 Solayman marched on Baghdad and

took over this pashalik as well, reuniting the province, the sultan had no option but to acquiesce.° An idea of the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the pashalik of Baghdad under Ahmad and his successors during the next half-century may be gained from Eton's excellent contemporary Survey of the Turktsh Empire.’

The Pasha . . . has been in reality independent, except at very short intervals, ever since Achmet Pasha . .. . The Sultan only confirms the Pasha the people, and principally the soldiery of Baghdad, have appointed to govern them with despotic power; the firman, however, sent on these

2. Lockhart, Safavt Dynasty, 52-54; Plaisted, 23. 3. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 68. 4. Ibid., 93-94; Longrigg, 134.

5S. Longrigg, 152; Lorimer, 1199; Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 234-306. 6. Cevdet I, 339; SP 97/33 (1748), 175b-176a; SP 97/34 (1749), 81, 121b-122a,

Brieven 2716 (1754), 52-57. For a history of this dynasty, which lasted until 1831, see Longrigg, chaps. 7-10.

7. Pp. 288-89.

The Stege of Basra 169 occasions, always mentions the Pasha as being nominated by the sublime

porte to this high and trusty office . . . and this farce is kept up by a new firman sent every year to continue him in office, as if the porte really had the power to remove him. The porte draws no revenue from this extensive province.

The pasha's annual accounts, continues Eton, proved that his revenue was entirely absorbed by his large army, a necessary defense against Iranian and Arab attacks, and by the upkeep of long-derelict fortresses. The pasha never contributed troops for the sultan's European wars, claiming that they were urgently needed at home--a pretense illustrated from time to time with sham wars staged in connivance with the Montafeq.

Solayman retained an active interest in the affairs of Basra, which he controlled through a personally appointed deputy (the motasallem) and particularly favored the East India Company's trade. His vigorous suppression of tribal disorders by lightning forays earned him among the Arabs the nickname Abu Layla

(“Night Raider") ;° it is said that after one such operation he beheaded six prisoners in succession with his own hand while still seated.” His twelve years of strong and popular rule spanned the period of post-Nader anarchy in Iran, which he attempted to foster by giving asylum and help to political refugees and rebels: such were Mostafa Khan and 'Ali Mardan with their Safavid pretender in 1166/1752 (2.6) and Azad Khan on his flight from the Qajars in 1170/1757 (4.3.). Solayman was succeeded on his death on 14 May 1762 by Sa'd o1-Din Pasha, whon the Porte transferred from Raqqa. However, he soon lost control of Baghdad to ‘Ali Pasha, known as al-'Ajami, "the Persian,'' Solayman's former kakya. Though a

capable administrator, he was in turn ousted by the janissaries--possibly on the instigation of Solayman's widow, the forceful 'Adela Khatun--and in a second coup, on his attempting to regain power, was murdered. His successor 'Omar Pasha was confirmed by the Porte in summer 1764 as pasha of the united vilayet of Baghdad and Basra. 2°

The chaos in Iran had now resolved itself into the evidently strong regency of Karim Khan, a fact recognized by 'Omar when in the same year he sent an envoy to the Vakil to propose a joint operation against the Banu Ka'b. The motasallem who was to undertake the Basran part of the bargain was Solayman Aqa, appointed early in 1765. A Georgian by birth, of a capacity and energy comparable to that of his namesake the late Abu Layla, he was to survive three dismissals by his Superiors at Baghdad (in 1768, 1769-71, and 1773) and captivity by the Zands, not only to return yet again to his post but to become pasha of Baghdad, where Malcoln found him in 1800 and was struck by "the simplicity and manliness of his charac-

ter,"1 as Shushtari had been earlier. 8. Cevdet I, 339; Niebuhr, Retse, 317. 9. Beauchamp, 273. 10. GD XII, 6 August 1762; Cevdet I, 340; Huart, 153-55.

tv, 34g Malcolm, 234 note; Shushtari, Tohfat, 146; CAzzawi, Ta'rikh, 81; Olivier

170 Consolidation and Expanston, 1768-79 For almost eighteen months of the two years immediately preceding the siege, Iraq was prostrated by a plague, which began in Baghdad (said to have been infected by a caravan from Erzurum) at the beginning of April 1772 and spread rapidly to Basra and along the coast through Khuzestan to Bushire and beyond. Before it suddenly ceased in the following summer, it had claimed several hundred thousand victims (250,000 in Baghdad alone, according to British estimates) 1? and occasioned a general stagnation in administrative and commercial life, as well as lowering the resistance of the province, as much from the viewpoint of morale as of military re-

sources, to Iranian pressure.+° Estimates of the depopulation of Basra range from Agent Moore's highly unrealistic 200,000 deaths in the town itself and 2,000,000 over the whole area, through

other British estimates of 140,000 deaths, or 3,000 per day, to Sestini's more cautious conjecture of a drop in-population from 50,000 to 20,000-30,000 over the period of the plague and the Iranian occupation. 14 Many people fled from Basra, as from Bushire, to the safety of Shushtar, before this town was closed to refugees for two months when the plague had advanced to within four farsakhs. The unfortunate latecomers were supplied with food and water in the desert outside, and by this means the plague was halted, to spend its violence mainly on the Iraqi side of the Shatt./° On 27 July 1773, with the plague barely over, the Banu Ka'b attacked and plundered two quarters of the city, and burned the Qaputan pasha's house along with some of his boats. 1© Before Basra's convalescence was complete, the Zand army was at its gates. 11.3 CAUSES OF THE WAR

The continued independence of the Mamluk pashalik of Baghdad over the past decade had without doubt been facilitated by Turkey's involvement in Europe. From 1768

to 1774 she had conducted an ill-advised war against Russia in an attempt to force that power to evacuate Poland, succeeding only in losing her fleet and a great deal of her possessions round the northern shores of the Black Sea. By the Treaty of Kuichtk Qaynarja, signed in July 1774, she lost to Russia not only part of her

12. SP 97/49 (1773), 147a. 13. Shushtari, Tohfat, 142-43; FR XVII, 1061 (10 January 1774); Lorimer, 1241; Huart, 155-56; Badi®, 34;CAzzawi, Ta'rikh, 42. The latter dates the plague

from early Sha°ban 1186/November 1772 to the following Moharram/April; this would

accord better with contemporary EIC reports, and Shushtari's statement that it extended through 1187, if the months were transposed. 14, FR XVII, 1061; SP 97/49 (1773), 147a, 153a; Sestini, 169; Masson, 548. Figures for before and after this period necessarily include the effects of the Zand siege and occupation, so the figures for plague deaths cannot be isolated. Estimates of the duration of the epidemic, and especially the mortality figures, have been greatly exaggerated; e.g., Badi~ claims that the plague killed 70,000 in Baghdad on the first day alone, "and on the second and third days the number of deaths was beyond computation."

15. Shushtari, Tohfat, 142-43. 16. SP 97/49 (1773), 147b, 148b.

The Stege of Basra 172 territory but also an important part of her domestic autonomy itself in regard to

jurisdiction over her Christian subjects. It is significant that after this chastening experience the Porte did not declare war on Iran until at least the late summer of 1776 (15.3)--some three months after the fall of Basra and as long as

two years since hostilities had first begun in Kurdistan. It was the pasha of Baghdad whose policy provoked the war, or at least provided the casus belli; he was left to deal with the consequences and ultimately to fall as the scapegoat. The major political cause of the war was 'Omar Pasha's intervention in the rivalries for the frontier province of Baban (known also under the name of its center, Qara Chowalan), which since the death of Solayman Pasha of Baghdad had fallen increasingly under the influence of the Iranian-sponsored vali of Ardalan. 'Omar's replacing the governor provoked two campaigns by Karim to reestablish Iranian authority in the area, the second of which was regarded by the Porte, when

it eventually roused itself, as a greater danger than the capture of Basra. The war on this front and its relation to the Basran campaign will be examined in the next chapter; here we are concerned specifically with the motives for the attack on Basra.

The sudden toughening of the pasha's policy toward Iran as seen in his actions in Baban province was more blatantly manifested in his treatment of the Iranians in Baghdad and especially the pilgrims to the shrines of Najaf and Karbala. As the Sunni governor of the most sacred Shi'i shrines, he was in an invidious situation: he derived no revenue from the wealthy shrine towns with their exclusively pilgrim traffic and tax-free awgaf, though "the merchants of Najaf and Karbala grew fat on the profits of the pilgrim trade, and the noise of the bazaars more often than not drowned the lamentations of the faithful, prostrating themselves in the precincts of the tombs "17 He was obliged to steer a delicate course between offending both foreign and native Shi'ites and maintaining the dignity and supremacy of the caliphate in an atmosphere of hostile fanaticism; so it was by this time a matter of tradition for the pilgrims to "make grievous conplaints of the insults and oppressions of the Turks 48 For this they were given more than usual cause when a frontier toll was unexpectedly levied on Iranian pilgrims.!° Other indignities were heaped on them in Baghdad, and Iranian residents there were robbed, fined, and deported in unprecedented numbers . 2° This was clearly in contravention of Nader's treaty of 1746, which had stipulated freedom of passage and exemption from taxes for Iranian pilgrims. “+ The crowning injustice came with the plague, during which more than 700 Iranian residents and pilgrims died; the deceased had their residue confiscated without redress to their relatives. These latter brought their complaints

17. Kelly, 35-36. 18. Forster, 146.

19. TGG, 181; GM, 177; Cevdet II, 55. 20. Al-Shushtari, Tagkera, 165. 21. Hatt-i Hilmdytin, No. 2; Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 255; Qaddusi, 439.

172 Consolidatton and Expansion, 1763-76 to Shiraz, and early in 1774 Haydar Qoli Khan Zangana, an accomplished and welltraveled linguist, was sent with an embassy to Baghdad to remonstrate with ‘Omar

Pasha. He received evasive and unsatisfactory excuses and was offered no redress“ The actual casus belli is said to have arisen when the pasha seized and bastinadoed two Iranians in Kazemayn, one of whom died of his beating. 7° Free access to the shrines of Iraq was now more important than ever before. During the Safavid wars with Turkey, the shrine of 'Ali Reza at Mashhad had been

developed as a practical alternative to the forfeited 'Atabat as the center of Iranian pilgrimage, for which it was doubly suited when Mashhad became Nader's

capital. With the splitting-off of the eastern part of Nader's empire, Mashhad was lost politically and geographically to Karim Khan's Iran; Najaf and Karbala, which had never lost their spiritual supremacy to Mashhad and were now easier of access, became once more the chief focus of Iranian Shi'i aspirations. It was perhaps this increase in the vexatious pilgrim traffic, together with the accumulation of Iranian refugees in Baghdad,“ that provoked the pasha's policy of discouragement. However, this not only furnished Karim Khan with a legitimate pretext for war, but endowed the war in Iranian eyes with the aura of a crusade. As in other crusades, ulterior motives, barely acknowledged, bolstered the ostensible aim of winning free access to the holy places. Some writers have stressed the need to employ a large and unruly tribal army whose obedience could be kept ultimately only through regular pay and booty; 7° however, part of this was already engaged in Mazandaran, attempting to quell Hosayn Qoli Khan's insurrection, and the rest might better have been employed in Kurdistan to ensure more than the middling success that was achieved on that front. Behind the large-scale Basran campaign was rather the need to recoup prestige after Zaki Khan's embarrasSing failure the previous year even to outwit the shaykh of Hormuz at the outset of what had been advertised all along the Gulf as the reconquest of 'Oman. The pasha had been approached for help at the same time and, although he made vague promises to the Vakil, neglected to implement them.“° The Basrans also lent some naval aid to their trading partners, the Omanis, with whom the Vakil considered

himself at war as "rebels" (10.5). Furthermore, according to the Persian historians, the pasha had refused permission for a Zand army to cross his territory in order to march around the Arabian coast in support of Zaki Khan's seaborne invasion, 7” though it is unlikely that such an expedition was seriously contemplated. In addition to all this was the galling memory of the pasha's failure to assist Karim's army against the Ka'b in the expedition proposed by the pasha himself ten 22. TGG, 181; GM, 177; FR XVII, 1061; SP 97/55 (1775), 37b-38a; Cevdet II,

55; Shushtari, Tohfat, 144. 23. Shushtari, Tohfat, 144. 24. Niebuhr, Retse, 213. 25. Malcolm, 139; cf. H. Hedayati, Tartkh-e Zandtya, 177. 26. FR XVII, 1069 (1 May 1774).

p isa TGG, 181-82; GM, 178; MT, 337; cf. Nasiri, Bar-rastha-ye Tartkht X, No,

The Stege of Basra 173 years previously. On all these counts ‘Omar Pasha and his motasallem were deemed deserving of chastisement. Commercial considerations probably loomed larger than any of these more obvious pretexts. Basra's commanding position in the Gulf had to a great extent been offset by the Safavid development of Bandar ‘Abbas and Bushire into major ports to serve the area dominated by Isfahan; but in Nader's time, with his northern capital served from the Caspian by the British Russia Company and the Russians, the Persian Guif ports had already lost some of their importance. In the subsequent anarchy the center of trade in the Gulf had crept steadily westward away from marauding brigands and extortionate warlords to the security of Basra. Having abandoned its Isfahan factory in 1750, the East India Company was forestalled in an attempt to establish a base at Bandar Rig by the advent of Mir Mohanna; by 1763, however, the British had abandoned Bandar 'Abbas for Bushire with Karim Khan's blessing, and in 1770 the company had lost even this base and traded exclusively at Basra. The Vakil showed himself fiercely opposed to this move and threatened in reprisal to destroy the flourishing port, which he found ''a great Fyesore."'78 Although it was on orders from Bombay and as a result of quite different pressures that the company returned to Bushire in 1775 (15.6), both they and the Basrans had been half-expecting a siege for fully four years in advance~-indeed, they had been apprehensive even at the time of Karim's first expedition against the Ka'b in 1757.7"

A further cause of Basra's increase and Iran's corresponding decrease in prosperity was the Iranian and especially Armenian émigré merchants, many of whom

preferred to ignore the Vakil's inducements to return (14.5) as the pasha ignored his demands to return them.” Mirza Mohammad the Kalantar, invariably generous to the Vakil's memory, as-

sumes, however, his most querulous and critical tone in castigating Karim's siege as a senile aberration, a futile and costly emulation of Nader Shah. >2 Perhaps indeed Karim was tempted to show that he could succeed where the great Nader had

failed, and certainly the enterprise was costly for the Iranians and ruinous for Basra. But there is no other evidence of the Vakil's being dogged by the shadow of one who, for all his exploits, was so widely execrated, or of his falling victim to the same megalomania as Nader in his later years. The actions of the pasha were provocation enough, when negotiation failed, for war; Basra was an easy enough target and a rich enough commercial prize to justify it as the main objective, and, what was perhaps uppermost in the Vakil's mind, an excellent hostage with which to bargain for political and religious concessions from the pasha and commercial and naval cooperation from the British, even if the town itself should 28. SP 97/49 (1773), 147b; FR XVII, 1069, 1080. 29. GD IX, 15 May 1757. 30. SP 97/49 (1773), 147b.

31. Kalantar, 67-68.

174 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-75 prove untenable in the long run. That the venture failed in some of these respects was due partly to the premature evacuation forced by the death of Karim Khan. 11.4 THE START OF THE SIEGE

While 'Ali Morad and Nazar 'Ali Khan kept 'Omar Pasha's forces occupied in Kurdistan with a few thousand men, Karim's brother Sadeq was given command of the main army of between thirty thousand and fifty thousand men assembling in Shiraz. >” About 8 Zu'l-Qa'da 1188/10 January 1775, Sadeq moved off into Khuzestan. Passing through Shushtar, he continued straight to Hawiza, where he arrived about a month

later and spent a further month in preparing for operations .”> This included the requisitioning of boats to maintain his supply lines and commmications. Sadeq's Strategy seems to have been admirably conceived and, in the event, well executed: the army would move in from the north--by the same route Nader's army used in

1741°*--first along the banks of the Hawiza River to where it joins the Shatt ol"Arab at Sowayb, just below Qorna, then bridge the Shatt, and clear their way of any Montafeq who might be positioned there; the Shatt behind them would be held for them by boats from Khuzestan, and simultaneously the Shatt below Basra would be cleared and held by a flotilla already on its way from Bushire and Bandar Rig. With the elimination of the Montafeq and the cooperation of the Ka'b, the besiegers would have undisturbed communications, while the Basrans would be under strict blockade. Leaving Hawiza about 9 Moharram 1189/12 March 1775, the army arrived unchal-

lenged at the banks of the Shatt three days later.>> Their vanguard had already reached Sowayb a few days earlier, and its arrival was reported to Basra by Shaykt. ‘Abdollah's Montafeq "army of observation."' An Iranian envoy was sent to demand that the motasallem, the senior Montafeq Shaykh Darvish, the heads of the Armenian and Jewish communities, and the East India Company agent send representatives to discuss terms, but was ignored. Shaykh 'Abdollah's fifteen thousand men, whose

duties did not extend so far as offering resistance, now retired from their positions on the right bank, and reports reached Basra between 17 and 20 March that

32. MT, 337; Fasa'i I, 218; Hovhanyants, 317 (all give 30,000); SP 97/52 (1776), 176 (20,000 to 40,000); Malcolm, 141 (50,000). 33. Shushtari, Tohfat, 144; TGG, 183-84; GM, 181. A report from Baghdad dated 13 February (SP 97/51 [1775], 38a) places the Iranian army at six days' march from Basra, which would correspond to the Hawiza district. 34. FR XVIII, 1089. 35. GM, 181; TGG, 184-85. Both give 12 Moharram as the date of leaving Hawiza and 15 Moharram as that of arrival at the Shatt; this is three days behind Parsons! account, according to which the Zand vanguard arrived on 15 March/12 Moharram. Parsons' subsequent dates--confirmed by EIC sources--are likewise three to four days ahead of the chroniclers, who probably refer to the main body of the army.

The following account of the siege itself is necessarily compressed. For a detailed military description, essentially summarizing the Persian chronicles, see Kashmiri in Bar-rastha-ye Tartkht, VI, No. 1, 87-126 and No. 2, 69-104.

The Stege of Basra 175 "the Persian army was leisurely wafting itself over the river, on blown goat skins, having no enemy to obstruct them. These were doubtless the two thousand intrepid Bakhtyari who in Nami's account swam across in the teeth of fierce opposition and secured a bridgehead until the materials arrived from Hawiza to construct a pontoon bridge.” This work, entailing the forging of long chains to secure the boats, took twoand-a-half weeks longer, extending over the Nawruz festivities; and by 2 Safar/4 April the whole army and its baggage had crossed the Shatt.°° The army set off immediately on the forty or fifty-mile march to Basra, where the vanguard arrived at 6 A.M. on 6 April, followed at 10 A.M. by the main body and next day by the rear and baggage train. ‘The successive camps spread out from a point some three miles north of the Baghdad gate to overrun Margil, two miles beyond--where the East India Company agent's country house was stripped of its doors and windows-finally appearing to cover an area three miles by five, according to ''that cheerful Munchhausen,"' Abraham Parsons.”

Basra had had ample warning before the storm broke. Ever since the abortive joint campaign against the Ka'b in 1765 the motasallem had shown his distrust of his powerful neighbor, and over the past year the deterioration of relations between Baghdad and Shiraz had obviously increased the threat to Basra. By 18 October, 1774, news had arrived of the proposed Zand campaigns against the pasha's protege in Kurdistan, and of Karim's preparations against Basra; and as early as 15 January of this year Sadeq was known to have set out from Shiraz. Yet a successful night raid three days later, when a party of Banu Ka'b scaled the wall and looted the main bazaar, was attributed by Parsons to the inadequacy of the watch kept .1°

The town's defenses consisted chiefly of a wall that attracted the disparaging eye of every traveler between 1751 and 1800 for its sprawling dilapidation. This "mud wall of no strength," 'mouldring," "bad and greatly out of repair," "mostly broken down and ruined." feebly encircled a rectangular perimeter of at least 6 miles by Scott Waring's account (some 7.5 miles by the scale on Niebuhr's map; a distance characteristically increased by Parsons to 12). Within this, in addition to a city which "has the meanest Aspect and is the worst built of any I ever saw . . . the Governor's own House was no better than a Dog-hole,'"' lay large Open areas of date groves and graveyards . 74 The wall was, however, 20-25 feet thick in places and was further reinforced by a broad and deep moat extending all 36. Parsons, 164-65; FR XVII, 1092; Lorimer, 1249-51. 37. TGG, 187; Tafrashi, 218b; Bakhtyari, 481. 38. TGG, 185, 187; GM, 182; Tafrashi, 219a-b; Parsons, 170.

39. Parsons, 170-72 (the apt epithet is from Kelly, 43); SP 97/51 (1775), 8a. 40. FR XVII, 1084; Parsons, 162. 41. Quoted respectively from: Waring, 132; SP 97/51, 37b; Plaisted, 21; Carmichael, 53.

42. Plaisted, 20; Niebuhr, Retse, 213 (see fig. 2).

176 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 round and connected to the Shatt. In addition were breast-high parapets, 4 gates and a sally port, an artillery of 8 brass twelve-pounders on the wall's 8 bastions plus about 50 six- to nine-pounders mounted on ships! carriages--most of which were

unfit for use until shortly before the Zand attack. Local supplies of saltpeter made Basra self-sufficient in powder, which normally was even exported.** The garrison, from a mere 300 janissaries in 1750,“ had been augmented to about 1500 and supplemented by Solayman Aqa's energetic recruitment among the local

tribes and peasants. It was further swelled by the arrival on 2 April of 300 Montafeq tribesmen under Shaykh Thamer, who had neglected a stirring promise made earlier to breach the dikes above Sowayb and flood the Zand camp so that he could

join his kinsman Shaykh Darvish in the shelter of the town; and again on April 3 by 200 janissaries from Baghdad, who had left their boats above Qorna, skirted the Zand bridgehead and reembarked farther down. The Montafeq field army under Shaykh ‘Abdollah had retired to Zobayr."” The normal population at this time has been variously estimated at between forty to fifty thousand and eighty to ninety thousand, ‘© and must already have been diminished by the effects of the plague. If we accept the lowest figure and, allowing for the influx of refugees from the outlying villages, assume about half that number of combatants, we may yet share some of Parsons' optimism and conviction that, despite the recent plague, morale was high. At least one local merchant was convinced that "the Mutselim . .. aman of Resolution and good Management . . . with the Assistance of the English Agent's ships will by God's help keep them off.""7/ 11.5 WITHDRAWAL OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY

The attitude and actions of the East India Company agent during this period were at the least inconsistent and may be argued to show incompetence and even panic.

Having despaired of trying to interest his superiors in authorizing active participation in the defense of Basra, since they were now more concerned to negotiate a settlement with Karim Khan, Henry Moore at first followed the company's line and

protested its neutrality to the motasallem. The latter, apart from dissuading him from loading the company's merchandise onto its two cruisers, for fear of encouraging defeatism, made no move to force Moore to cooperate in the city's defense .*® However, on 21 March, while Sadeq's army was still crossing the Shatt at Sowayb, fourteen gallivats identified as belonging to the company's old enemy, the Banu

43. Parsons, 155-56.

44, Plaisted, 21.

45. Parsons, 165, 170-71. 46. By Niebuhr (Reise, 213) and Parsons (173), respectively. Olivier (IV,

344), also quotes 40,000 and Masson (548) 50,000.

47, SP 97/51, 38a. 48. FR XVII, 1085; Lorimer, 1246. According to a later letter from the next motasallem, No“man, to the pasha, Moore at first volunteered to assist the Turks but then defected to the Iranians; this was indignantly refuted by Ainslie, the British ambassador at Istanbul (SP 97/55 [1779], 200a-202b).

The Stege of Basra 177 Ka'b, sailed blatantly upriver past the walls. It was then that Moore abandoned his position as a mere spectator in order, as he later justified himself, to avenge the company's honor and protect its property. The cruiser Suecess was sent in pursuit and managed to capture and burn one or two of the boats. No doubt Moore considered that, as the company was still technically at war with the Ka'b, who in his view were being "forced against their will" to aid the Iranians, this did not prejudice his neutrality. A few days later the agent consented to provide men to command and crew two of the pasha's armed gallivats under British colors and finally added the weight of the company's two cruisers to this fleet. When Parsons had the idea of constructing a pontoon chain boom to deny the Ka'b further passage, Moore had the Success furnish a seventy-fathom chain for this purpose. /” On 8 April, the day after hostilities commenced on land, appeared the first

wave of the Iranian support fleet from the Gulf ports--sixteen vessels in all, including at least ten gallivats, and impertinently headed by the brig Tyger, captured from the company two years before (15.6). They engaged the Basran fleet lying a few miles downriver from 9 A.M. until 3 P.M., when the Eagle and Success bore down on them and obliged them to withdraw.°? Three days later news arrived from Bushire that on 31 March Shaykh Naser--probably the old chief's son of the Same name 1S meant--had set sail with the other fourteen gallivats of the Gulf fleet, plus about fifty smaller boats and fifteen hundred men. > Simultaneously with these developments on the naval front, the Iranian operations on land had rapidly assumed an ominously businesslike manner. Two further demands by Sadeq, on 23 March for twenty lakhs of rupees to buy him off and on 5 April for a parley with Shaykh Darvish, had been politely but firmly rejected, and on 7 April four Iranians reconnoitering the walls an insouciant thirty yards away were attacked and killed by a dozen of the garrison. Accordingly, Sadeq opened

his attack with a surprise night raid over the wall at 2 A.M. on 9 April. A fierce hand-to-hand contest raged for several hours in pitch darkness, and Parsons and the East India Company personnel hastily embarked on the Eagle from the Qaputan pasha's quay, but by dawn all was quiet. The defenders claimed complete

victory, with one hundred Iranians killed for thirty Basrans; all breathed easy again and morale soared. Shaykh 'Abdollah, however, suddenly quitted his position at Zobayr, leaving most of his baggage and livestock to the enemy. The next day the Iranians attempted to burn the pontoons of Parsons' chain boom to complete the imminent junction with their fleet, but its inventor remained confident that the pontoons would still support the chains even if burned down to the waterline. >“ Agent Moore now weighed the arguments for and against staying in Basra to Support the defenders. On 27 March he had been forced by the motasallem, on pain

49. ER XVII, 1089; SP 97/52 (1776), 146; Parsons, 166-67. 50. Parsons, 173; Wilson, 185. 51. FR XVII, 1089. S52. Parsons, 167, 171, 172, 174-78.

178 Consoltdatton and Expanston, 1763-79 of imprisonment, to content himself with a bond for indemnification of company

losses valid only on condition that the ships remained in the river until the tow Should be taken, in the event of an Iranian victory. On the one hand, to desert now would be to invalidate this bond, as well as to stab in the back the defenders' precarious morale. On the other hand was the proximity of a strong Iranian fleet and the consequent danger not only to his cruisers but to three merchantmen expected soon; there were his orders from Bombay to have the ships return there at once and to maintain friendly relations with Karim Khan; and there was the possibility of Iranian reprisals .>> These latter arguments won. On 11 April the two cruisers, with the agent, Parsons, the company's personnel, and cash reserves on board, and the Basran boats in their wake, moved off downriver, ostensibly to engage in battle with Shaykh Naser's fleet. Moore was still toying with the idea of returning to Basra if they gained a definite advantage, but in this he apparently judged they had failed. The ensuing "Ridiculous Action," to use Joseph Emin's words, was a long-range exchange of fire lasting all day, with only minor damage to the rigging and no casu-

alties reported, each side claiming the other as aggressor and itself as victor. Emin, supported by Parsons, claims that the Bushire fleet opened fire first at a range of two miles, broke off, and retired into a creek at 9 P.M. and was stuck in the mud next morning when the agent called off further action to take advantage cf a sudden northwesterly breeze.” Shaykh Naser indignantly and unconvincingly conplained next month to Garden, the company's negotiator at Bushire, that he was merely on his way to seek a friendly interview with Moore on Karim Khan's orders When the British vessels launched an unprovoked attack; he restrained his men with difficulty from returning fire, though some boats vented their righteous wrath on

the British ships before these fled downstream.” Whatever the precise nature of this skirmish, the cruisers did continue downstream and, after replenishing their stocks at "Grane" (Qorayn, present-day Kuwait), arrived on 15 April at Bushire. Parsons, who had not known of Moore's real plans, was greatly chagrined, for, as he had foreseen, the Bushire fleet continued up the Shatt on the next tide, broke through the boom, and linked up with Sadeq's army .>° These thirty Arab galleys

and fifty boats, which were to maintain Iranian superiority in the Shatt for most of the siege, have the distinction of being the only naval force ever to operate for Iran in wartime. At Bushire Garden had successfully negotiated the return of the two hostages held by Karim Khan and the reestablishment of the East India Company factory there (15.6). He now rounded on Moore "most maliciously and unwarrantably" in his vic-

tim's words, for showing partisanship at all, for his attack on the Iranian fleet, 53. FR XVII, 1089; Amin, 113.

54. Emin, 452; Parsons, 179-80; cf. SP 97/52 (1776), 15a, 17. 55. Saldanha, 296-97 (letter received 3 May 1775). 56. Parsons, 180-82; FR XVII, 1089; Wilson, 185.

The Stege of Basra 179 and for then deserting the Basrans. This censure was supported, if not suggested, by strong criticism of Moore in a letter from the Vakil and was further confirmed by the agent's superiors. Moore was now under fire from friends, foes, and employers. Urged to return to Basra, he refused to consider it, pointing to Agent Dorrill's mistreatment at the hands of the resentful Basrans during Nader's siege?’ Moore returned in July to Bombay, writing a polite apology to Solayman Aga for his inability to help and commending to him his successors designate, Latouche and Abrahams. °°

Although Moore's part was undeniably "both inconsistent and inglorious since

the correct policy of neutrality had been deserted," the company was placed in an impossible position by the outbreak of hostilities between its exigent hosts. In Garden's attack there is more than a whiff of an attempt to make Moore the scapegoat for a great many errors, the responsibility for which is shared by his colleagues and superiors, as will perhaps emerge more clearly later (15.6). 11.6 BASRA ALONE

The sudden departure of the Vakil-e Farang-e Englis and his warships enabled the Zand forces to complete the encirclement of Basra. Sadeq was still hoping to storm the walls so as to avoid a lengthy blockade, and on 26 April, after an allnight bombardment of the walls by Shaykh Naser, the army launched a massive as-

Sault with scaling ladders in five different places. They were repulsed after an hour's bitter close-quarter fighting with casualties claimed by the Basrans as two thousand and the loss of one hundred ladders, as against two Basrans wounded. °Y Despite these exaggerations, even the Persian chroniclers admit that bombardment and assaults made little impression and that the spirited defense, encouraged by the efforts of Solayman Aqa, forced Sadeq to dig in and content himself with an aggressive blockade. At one point a deserter showed the Zand amy the weakest

spot in the wall, but despite their demolishing four turrets and the ramparts between them with a day-long cannonade, the defenders repaired and even reinforced

it overnight. Extensive picket lines were established all round the town, not only to prevent the passage of supplies and the promised reinforcements from Bagh-

dad, but to guard against fierce night sorties by the garrison. °Treachery, a proven ally in previous Zand sieges, was the next resort. A deserter offered to show Sadeq a way through a water gate off the Shatt, so by night the commander sent three or four trusted gholams with the man to investigate. Just as they were about to enter the gate, they were almost surprised by a sortie issuing from the same place. They rushed back to the Zands' forward picket lines 57. FR XVII, 1089. 58. ER XVII, 1092. 59. Longrigg, 191. 60. FR XVII, 1089. 61. GM, 188; TGG, 187, 189-90.

180 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79 barely in time to alert them, and the sortie was defeated after a fierce hand-tohand contest. The secret entrance, however, was evidently no secret.©” One danger still facing the Zand army in its camp on the level of Basra lay in the possibility of disastrous flooding if the barrages and dikes of what is now the Hawr ol-Hammar region should be breached. The Montafeq, who nominally con-

trolled this region, had refused to give battle directly, but might still wash tie besiegers into the Shatt if they chose. Sadeq could not afford the men to guard each danger spot, so he entertained the headman of the area, Hajji Naser, confirned him in his post with a robe of honor and doubtless proffered a more substantial bribe, with the result that he guarded the dikes efficiently with his own men for the duration of the siege. Another danger with the approach of summer was the @aws, the hot wind that invariably blows in from the sand desert to the south of Basra and could have made life well-nigh unbearable for troops in the open. By some meteorological fluke this wind gave way all that summer to a refreshing northerly breeze, which the Iranians saw as a favorable dispensation of Providence and a presage of success .°° 11.7 THE OMANI INTERVENTION

About this time came the first indications that Imam Ahmad of Oman, still feuding at a distance with his self-styled overlord Karim Khan, was prepared to attempt the relief of Basra, his primary trading partner in the Gulf. On 3 May two gallivats from Oman arrived off Ra's Halila, near Bushire, but returned on 5 June after vainly trying to persuade the British to join them against the besiegers of Basra" By the middle of August, the Imam's fleet was ready to tackle them independently. It consisted of the Bombay-built Rahmani and nine other large ships, accompanied by thirty to fifty smaller dhows and seventy gallivats and trankeys--over one hundred vessels in all, armed with a variety of cannon and loaded with eight to ten thousand men, at a generous estimate, in addition to supplies for Basra.°> This impressive force passed Bushire on 11 September and dropped anchor a few days

later at the mouth of the Shatt. The Zands had not been idle in the face of this "Kharijite’ menace. Months before, the Vakil had ordered Shaykh Naser of Bushire and Shaykh Barakat of the Banu Ka'b to provide all the chains they could collect. These were then welded to-

gether in Shiraz and sent to Sadeq to be slung across the lower reaches of the Shatt on pontoons. One end of this boom was guarded by the Ka'b, the other by a detachment of Sadeq's men, both armed with cannon. The Omani fleet was thus ob-

liged to wait helplessly at its anchorage for the best part of a month, apparently 62. TGG, 191. 63. TGG, 193-94. 64. FR XVII, 1089; cf. TGG, 196. 65. TGG, 196; Lorimer, 416; Salil, 169-70; Miles, 273. Nami has 12,000,

Salil 10,000. A translation of an Arabic letter from Basra in SP 97/51, 112, estimates the number of the Omani fleet at 300-400 sail.

The Stege of Basra 181 making no attempt either to breach the boom or to tackle the shore guards. Then one night in mid-October, an unexpectedly strong northerly wind broke the boon. The pontoons drifted down the Shatt dragging their lengths of chain, and the Omani fleet, thus apprised of their stroke of fortune, upped anchor next day and made their way into the Shatt. Despite high winds and bombardment from the shore batteries, the whole fleet broke through with little damage and on 14 October, to the great joy of the beleaguered citizens, hove to under the walls of Basra.°° Neither Sadeq's army nor Shaykh Naser's navy was able to prevent the Imam's men unloading their supplies and landing their troops to join the Basran garriscn for a massive sortie next day. The ensuing battle is represented by the Persian chroniclers as a veritable ''turkey shoot," encouraged by Sadeq's offer of a bonus of three tumans for every man killed and five for every prisoner taken; the remnants of the routed sortie fled back to the town or to their ships, where they were hotly bombarded and replied in kind. The Omani version, of course, telis of a complete victory over the Iranians. This is supported--though perhaps based on reports by Omanis--in the East India Company letters from Bushire, which speak of a desperate Iranian assault repulsed with loss .°/ It would seem that the battle was indecisive: the Omani supplies and troops undoubtedly relieved the pressure on the Basrans and raised their morale, though they were unable to oust the beSiegers from their positions. Over the next few months both sides contented themselves with artillery duels, while the Omanis' supplies dwindled. At first they would rush parties of men into the date groves to obtain food and water, until Sadeq posted guards on both banks to prevent this .°% Their control of the river during this time must have placed some strain on the Zand resources, too, as Shaykh Naser's supply vessels would be denied free passage. But Sadeq was at least receiving reinforcements from Shiraz, while the Basrans were still denied any from Baghdad: ‘Ali Mohammad Khan Zand arrived with a force about this time,

though he was delayed at Hawiza by lack of transport across the river.°° Early in 1776, the Omanis decided to cut their losses in this futile and expensive exercise, and one night the whole fleet weighed anchor and sailed back to Muscat.’ 11.8 BLOCKADE AND CAPITULATION

The blockade of Basra could not by any means have been so absolute as the Persian chroniclers imply. Assuming a six-mile landward perimeter for the walls and a 66. FR XVII, 1107, 1109; TGG, 196-97; GM, 191-92. Salil (170), followed by Miles (273), claims that the Rahmani rammed and broke the chain, but this is not substantiated elsewhere. Salil further states that the fleet was commanded by the Imam in person, whereas, according to the Persian cources, it was led by his tvo ars TGG, 198-99; GM, 193; Salil, 170; FR XVII, 1107 (19 October 1775). 68. TGG, 200; GM, 194. 69, FR XVII, 1109.

70. SP 97/52 (1776), 47b; Miles, 273; Nami (TGG, 200) states that the fleet

Stayed five months.

182 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 Space of at least half a mile between the walls and the Zand lines, the besiegers would have had to deploy over some eight miles of swamp, sand, and palm groves to achieve encirclement on land alone, without regard to the two miles or so of riverfront. The Basrans' lukewarm allies, the Banu Khaled and the Montafeq, contrived

to get some supplies through to the town, and their activities could have been a real danger to the Zands if a relief army had arrived from Baghdad. Sadeq had by the same token to depend greatly on the Khaza'el Arabs for intelligence and blockade enforcement to supplement his extended resources. These were a Shi'i tribe who traditionally feuded with the Montafeq and Banu Khaled and hoped with Zand

help to overcome their rivals. /+ Toward the end of 1775, while the Omani fleet was still in the Shatt, reports reached Sadeq that the long-expected relief force was on its way from Baghdad. Shaykh Hamad Khaza'el volunteered to intercept it and set off with a force of his tribesmen augmented by Zand troops; but by the time he had gotten as far as Hella there was still no sign of the pasha's men. After waiting for some time, Shaykh Hamad made to return, only to be informed that the relief force had just arrived at Hella and had been attacked and routed by his brother Shaykh Ahmad and nephew

Shaykh Soltan, who had remained behind with part of the Arab force. For this feat they were honored by Sadeq on their return. /? No further details of this action are given. It would seem from the ease with which it was repulsed that the Bdghdad force was only a token body of reinforcements; and the Khaza'el's apparent intelligence of their numbers and whereabouts suggests that they had their own spies or contacts in Baghdad, obviously a considerable boon to the Zands. Neither 'Omar nor his successor of a few months later, Mostafa Pasha, was able to send an army to relieve the beleaguered town. By the spring of 1776, after the withdrawal of the Omani fleet, Sadeq was able to tighten the blockade: pickets were placed along both banks of the Shatt for a distance of some fifteen miles to prevent all access. Soon individuals and then bands of hungry Basrans began to desert to the Zands, who fed them and invested the more important personages among them with robes of honor, in order to encourage further defection. The Shaykhs Thowayni and Thamer (the son and the nephew of Shaykh 'Abdollah), who com-

manded the Montafeq contingent in the garrison, applied to Sadeq for permission to withdraw from the town and were allowed through the Zand lines unmolested. ’* Another mass defection that proved even more useful was that of the Banu Khaled, who nomadized along the Arabian littoral between Basra and al-Qatif. Every year at this time it was their custom to raid the Basran date groves and collect

71. TGG, 201; Longrigg, 192. For the earlier history of the Banu Khaled, Fee ppenneim III, 133-35; for the Khaza°el, 322-23; for the Montafeq, 415-48 and 72. GM, 194-95; TGG, 201-2; Shushtari, Yohfat, 145; CAzzawi, Ta'rtkh, 60. In SP 97/52 (1776), 4b-5, it is reported that 17,000 troops had been--or were to

be--despatched from Baghdad.

73. GM, 195-97; TGG, 203-4; al-Basri, 31-32.

The Stege of Basra 183 their fi11, doubtless under a tacit agreement with the motasallem or the Montafeq. Seeing no reason why the siege should interrupt this tradition, they commenced their foray only to be repulsed with some slaughter by the Iranian pickets. Their Shaykh thereupon sent Sadeq a delegation, accompanied by a large cash gift, to ask leave to gather their customary crop of dates, on which their families were depending. With commendable diplomacy, Sadeq not only assented and returned their gift, but presented the delegation with robes of honor and even provided an escort for the date-gathering party. The Banu Khaled henceforth furnished Sadeq's army generously with milk and meat, easing the burden on his supply problems while denying all help to the Basrans. They even assisted in punitive forays against other local Arabs ./4 The siege was now a full eleven months old, with no hope of relief and with provisions reduced to "cats, dogs, horses, asses and the tops of date-palms .""”> Messages from Baghdad indicated that relief from that quarter was unlikely. /° The Starving townsfolk were deserting daily to the besiegers and the garrison was no longer reliable. Suspicious of the commander of the citadel troops, Solayman executed him and replaced him by his nephew 'Abd ol-Rahman; but the latter entered into a secret correspondence with the Zands, allowed a few of his men to slip out every day and finally surrendered himself. Shaykh Mohanna (great-nephew of Shaykh ‘Abdollah) and the remnants of the Montafeq contingent were guarded and cosseted as far as the motasallem's shrinking resources of manpower and provisions would allow, but they too defected to the Zands. With virtually no garrison left, Solayman Aga was forced to sue for terms. On 26 Safar 1190/16 April 1776, he sent ott a delegation under the senior kadkhoda Shaykh Darvish and the respected Sayyed Mohammad Shafi' (the brother of Mir 'Abd ol-Latif Shushtari, author of the Tohfat ol-'Alam), who obtained guarantees that all lives and property would be spared. Next day Solayman Aqa himself, weeping tears of shame and frustration, was received formally into honorable capitulation. On 1 Rabi' I/20 April, the citadel also surrendered, and the following day Sadeq Khan entered Basra. / 74. GM, 198; TGG, 205-7.

75. Carmelites, 674; cf. Hovhanyants, 317, 318.

76. Al-Basri, 33.

77. GM, 199-200; TGG, 207-9; Shushtari, Tokfat, 145; FR XVII, 1125, 1126; Hovhanyants, 318.

T2

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra

12.1 BABAN AND ARDALAN

In the first chapter we left the turbulent provinces of Kurdistan in the winter of 1750-51, with Hasan 'Ali Khan of Ardalan installed at Sanandaj, licking the wounds inflicted by Karim Khan's punitive campaign, while his predecessor Salim Pasha, of the rival Baban family, had taken refuge with Azad Khan in Azerbaijan. A year later he accompanied Azad in his first campaign against Karim and distinguished himself at the Battle of Qomeshah;* so that when Azad captured Isfahan, he sunmoned Hasan 'Ali Khan from Sanandaj and appointed Salim Pasha in his stead. Some

time later, Salim sent his benefactor a present of 4000 tumans, on receipt of which Azad dispatched Hasan 'Ali Khan in chains to Sanandaj, where Salim had him hanged.

But his subjects soon rebelled; Solayman Pasha of Baghdad invaded’ and drove Salim to seek refuge and assistance, this time from Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar in Mazandaran. In this he was disappointed: Khosraw Khan Ardalani, grandson of Sobhan Verdi Khan, had already been a servant and confidant of the Qajar chief for some years and ensured that Salim's crimes were requited and his own aspirations realized. In Moharram 1168/October-November 1754 he was acclaimed vali in Sanandaj with popular approval and the backing of the Qajar leader.» At this time Azad was pursuing Karim into Fars, and ‘Abdollah Pasha, the Bajlan governor of Zohab, was threatened by a growing force under Mohammad Khan Zand

(3.6). Khosraw Khan was thus free for some time to exercise his undoubted courage

and intelligence in establishing his rule, which lasted in all for more than thirty years (1168-76/1754-62 and 1179-1204/1765-89). He was threatened briefly by Azad's march northward (following Mohammad Khan Zand's capture of Isfahan in

April of 1755), but withstood a twelve-day siege in the Sanandaj citadel until relieved by a Qajar column, and even pursued the Afghan as far as Garus. For this Service his Qajar patron sent him a present of 3000 tumans. On Mohammad Hasan's defeat and death, Khosraw Khan transferred his allegiance to the Vakil, sending his son Ahmad when Karim was at Soltaniya in 1174/1760.4 On this same occasion his rival in Baban, Solayman Pasha, also sent an envoy or even came in person to

1. MI, 272-73. 2. SP 97/36, 1 August 1753. 3. Rabino, Kurdistan, 83.

4. Ibid. This is not confirmed by the chroniclers. 184

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 185 the Vakil's camp,” perhaps to assure himself of Karim's goodwill in anticipation of his invasion of Ardalan and deposing of his rival two years later. This was but one in a series of incursions by the pasha of Baban on the terYitory of the vali of Ardalan and vice versa, encouraged or resisted by their Ottoman and Iranian suzerains in accordance with their own interests, which began with the rise of the Baban family a hundred years earlier and continued well into the nineteenth century.° Ardalan, covering much the same territory as the presentday Iranian ostan of Kordestan and with the same capital of Sanandaj (Sanna), and Baban, equivalent roughly to the Iraqi province of Solaymaniya, with its capital then at Qara Chowalan, had strong traditional ties, which were strained as much by the machinations of their respective overlords as by internal rivalries. In this they were similar to other parallel Kurdish principalities, Kermanshah-Zohak to the south and Mokri-Soran to the north, where the traditional east-west integration is cut by the north-south line of the Ottoman-Iranian frontier--a line which in the case of the northern provinces has proved no barrier to the passage to and fro of Kurdish separatist partisans up to the present day. The death of Solayman Pasha of Baghdad in May 1762 removed his fairly strict control of Baban and allowed one Ahmad Pasha to depose Solayman Pasha of Baban; it

was thus more out of self-preservation than in a spirit of conquest that the latter invaded Ardalan in the same year, occupying the frontier district of Mariwan. Khosraw Khan, however, marched swiftly with a small army and on the plain of Mar:wan defeated Solayman, who fled to Shiraz and by further intrigues and an additional present of 3000 tumans to Karim ensured Khosraw's recall and his own appointment as vali. Only a year later, after being reappointed to Baban by 'Omar, the new pasha of Baghdad, Solayman was murdered, and Karim reappointed Khosraw

Khan to Ardalan in 1179/1765. He ruled for ten years after the Vakil's death, repairing and enlarging his capital and encountering no serious challenge from Solayman's successors in Baban. / Indeed, during the internecine strife that prevailed in Baban for much of the decade after Solayman's death, Khosraw Khan and

through him the Vakil exercised no small influence over the rival claimants for that province. These were Solayman's two sons Ahmad and Mahmud and his brother Mohammad, whose complex struggles for the centers of Qara Chowalan and K6y Sanjag do not concern us .° Ardalan became directly involved again in 1188/1774, when Mohammad, with the backing of Khosraw Khan, secured ascendancy in Qara Chowalan and Kéy Sanjaq and

5. TGG, 95.

6. For a brief history of the Baban dynasty, see “azzawi, “Asha'er II, 98-

100; Edmonds, 52-59. For the Baban wars with Ardalan during 1747-79, see Zaki, Solaymantya, 73-88.

7. TGG, 188; Rabino, Kurdistan, 84; Zaki, Solaymantya, 77-80; Longrigg, 179.

For his later life, see Bamdad I, 478. 8. See Cevdet I, 344 f£.; SAzzawi, Ta'rikh, 44-48; Longrigg, 180; Zaki,

Solaymantya, 81-88.

186 Consoltdatton and Expanston, 1763-79 drove his rivals to complain to 'Omar Pasha. The Kurdish principalities, apart from their revenue, were strategically vital to Turkey and Iran and in addition furnished fighting contingents for service with their respective overlords; to have Baban virtually controlled by Iran was thus doubly dangerous to the pasha and was the reason he had always endeavored to keep the Baban leaders in check by changing them regularly and securing hostages.” ‘Omar now resolved on a "forward

policy" to restore his crumbling control of the region: he sent a large force from Baghdad, which reinstated Mahmud at Koy and Ahmad at Qara Chowalan and drove Mohanmad to take refuge in Sanandaj.1° 12.2 ZAND INTERVENTION IN KURDISTAN

At this point the Persian chroniclers take up the story, emphasizing that to the Iranians, already smarting from 'Omar's mistreatment of their compatriots in Iraq, this was an intolerable interference with the balance of power in Kurdistan. In October 1774 the Vakil sent a force under 'Ali Morad Khan to restore the ousted pasha and ordered a second army held ready to march on Basra. This information was transmitted from a spy in Shiraz via Solayman Aqa at Basra to 'Omar Pasha. ‘Ali Morad collected further reinforcements on his way through Ardalan and arrived about early November in the region of Qara Chowalan with some ten to twelve thousand men. Despite his considerably smaller mumbers--only three thousand, even when reinforced by a corps from Baghdad--Ahmad Pasha took the field. During the

four hours of fighting that followed, the Iranians at first had the upper hand. Then 'Ali Morad Khan himself, drunk with overconfidence, charged alone into the

enemy ranks, roaring challenges. The pasha's army had little difficulty in dragging him from his steed and trussing him up, while his troops lost cohesion and were put to flight. Some four or five thousand were killed and ten or twelve officers captured in addition to the commander. ‘Ali Morad was taken to Baghdad, where 'Omar, still unwilling to precipitate a direct conflict with Karim Khan, treated him and his fellow prisoners well and shortly afterward politely returned them to the furious Vakil, "with great Pomp and Honour" and the tongue-in-cheek observation that he supposed these persons had trespassed on Ottoman territory without orders. The Vakil reciprocated with gifts to the pasha, including an elephant, and assurances of peace.) ‘Ali Morad escaped with nothing worse than a tongue-lashing, and Nazar ‘Ali Khan was at once detailed to recover Zand prestige with a fresh expedition. The Vakil, despite his assurances to 'Omar, had now opened up an offensive all along 9. Cf. Rousseau, Deseription, 100-101.

10. GM, 176-78; TGG, 178, 182. 11. FR XVII, 1084, 1085 (4 December 1774).

12. Ibid.; SP 97/51 (1775), 46a (whence the quotation); Hatt-i Him@y2n, 135, 348a; TGG, 178-79; GM, 178-79; Cevdet I, 134; II, 52-53. The numbers given for “Ali Moradd's force are 14,000 (Longrigg, 180), 10,000-12,000 (FR XVII, 1084), over 10,000 (SAzzawi, Ta'rikh, 48), and 4000 (Tafrashi, 218a).

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 187 the Iraqi front: Sadeq had set out for Basra in January 1775 and about the same time, while Nazar 'Ali was still equipping his army, his vizier Mirza Mohammad Ja'far was sent to 'Abdollah Pasha to demand the cession of Zohab. The Bajlan governor temporized and, as ‘Omar Pasha seemed unwilling or unable to send him any

reinforcements, kept Karim's envoy in fruitless discussion while he secretly sent his flocks and family nearer to Baghdad and collected an army of five thousand men. When Mirza Ja'far finally realized 'Abdollah's intentions, he broke off the talks and called on Nazar 'Ali, encamped at Harunabad (present-day Shahabad-e Gharb) to

attack. Nazar 'Ali Khan marched at once, but still found the town of Zohab deserted on his arrival. Leaving his baggage in the care of Allah Qoli Khan Zangana, the governor of Kermanshah, and putting his son Aga Mirza ‘Ali in charge of Zohab,

Nazar 'Ali set off at sunset on an all-night forced march. He caught ‘Abdollah Pasha next morning.on the far side of Khanaqin and slaughtered two thousand of his men, took one hundred twenty thousand head of livestock, devastated the region, and returned well satisfied to Kermanshah .1° Further frontier raids followed under other Zand khans and Mohammad Khan Fayli. Zand prestige was restored, the Bajlan were cowed, Zohab was annexed, Ahmad had fled to Kerkuk, and ‘Omar Pasha was sufficiently intimidated to reappoint Mohammad to Qara Chowalan.2* 12.3 DIPLOMATIC MANEUVERS

The reaction of the Porte to these fireworks on its eastern frontiers was extraordinarily slow. The quasi-independent mamluk pashalik of Baghdad had remained

quietly in power for so long, despite periodic attempts by the sultan to divide it between his own appointees, that its dependencies of Kurdistan and Basra had been all but forgotten in Istanbul. Now, thirty years after Nader Shah's last forays in the area, Iranian pressure once more threatened the eastern frontiers, only a few months after Kiichik Qainarja had bitten considerable chunks off Turkish

territories and prestige in the west. This latter debacle had been at least partly precipitated by the death of the capable Sultan Mostafa III at the end of 1773 and his succession by the insignificant 'Abd ol-Hamid, who was no more able to confront Iranian aggression than he had been to extricate the empire with honor fron the Russian misadventure.

His first ambassador to Shiraz, Sunbulzade Vehbi Efendi, left Istanbul in January and reached Shiraz in April of 1775.49 His journey thus coincided ironically with Sadeq's march on Basra, and his interview with the Vakil was overshadowed by the onset of the siege. Although his mission was evidently inspired by the hostilities in Kurdistan, he was not empowered to negotiate over this fresh 13. GM, 179-80; TGG, 179; MI, 337-38; Zaki, Solaymaniya, 84. 14, Zaki, Solaymaniya, 84; “Azzawi, Ta'rikh, 49; Tafrashi, 218b; Uzungargili, ae 15. SP 97/51, 2la (3 February), 68a (29. June 1775).

188 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 crisis. His mission was ostensibly confined to a polite official announcement of the death of Mostafa and the accession of 'Abd ol-Hamid--a suitable occasion for the resumption of diplomatic relations with Iran after her leaderless state had curtailed them and an overdue acknowledgment of Karim Khan's authority. Any guarded apologies he might have added for the behavior of ‘Omar Pasha?® were evi-

dently not enough, for he returned to Istanbul in September "in disgrace," bearing a reiteration of the Vakil's complaints against 'Omar Pasha integrated into a politely worded reply to the Porte's diplomatic niceties. This was drafted by the astute ‘Abdollah Khan Kalhor, who himself reciprocated the embassy that same month in advance of Vehbi's return. */

The points at issue seemed simple enough from the Iranian side. The Vakil would have no quarrel with the Porte if it ordered its appointed agent, ‘Omar

Pasha, to refrain from intervention in Kurdistan, to rescind the transit tax he had imposed on Iranian pilgrims (which, it was stressed, was not applied to those from India or Central Asia), and to pay 40,000 purses in compensation for the illegally confiscated property of Iranian victims of the plague--in effect, to honor the terms of the Treaty of Kurdan concluded with Nader Shah in September 1746.18 Though the Porte was apparently willing to accede to these demands, there were ob-

Stacles both theoretical and practical. The peace treaty, owing to Nader's death and the ensuing troubles in Iran, had never been ratified by either government. There were now two states in Iran vying for recognition as the successor to Nader's empire, and the more legitimate de jure--that of the Afsharids in Khorasan--had already established diplomatic ties with the Porte (15.3). And even though the frontier questions involved made it a foregone conclusion that some accommodation had to be sought with Karim Khan, 'Omar Pasha dismissed the Iranian accusations and demands--and the Porte had not as yet demonstrated it had sufficient authority to coerce or dismiss a pasha of Baghdad. Meanwhile, the blockade of Basra was tightening. It seemed that the Turks' diplomatic ineptitude had followed them

from the Russian to the Iranian front. Istanbul tried hard to rise to this challenge and almost succeeded. It was decided to replace ‘Omar Pasha with a more competent and reliable man, not only to facilitate accommodation with Iran but to put an end to the mamluk dynasty of

Baghdad and tie this strategic area more firmly to Istanbul. Probably interested local parties, such as ‘Omar's rivals the pashas of Mosul and Shahrezur, played a 16. GM, 190; cf. Cevdet I, 343; II, 53; see also 15.3. Nami (TGG, 194-95) assumes the embassy to have been in direct response to the siege and embroiders it into an almost abject appeal to the Vakil to take another province rather than Basra, which was an appanage of the sultan's mother? 17. SP 97/51, 87, 89b, 96b, 106; GM, 190; Hatt-< Humaylin, 174, 202, 218, 21%. 18. Hatt-i Him&ylin, 2, 5. For the treaty, see Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 255. This correspondence has been published by Nasiri in Bar-rastha-ye Tartkhi, X (1354/ to/2)s No. 1, 175-94; No. 6, 133-41. For more specific discussion, see below,

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 189 part in urging this decision.)° At all events, early in 1776, Espenaqchi-zada Hafez Mostafa Pasha of 'Orfa was sent with three to four thousand men to take over from 'Omar. The latter was officially admonished for needlessly antagonizing Iran and failing to respond adequately when hostilities broke out and was to be transferred to Diyarbekir. It would seem that he intended to go quietly, but Mostafa Pasha, either on secret orders from the Porte or because he coveted 'Omar's wealth, fell upon ‘Omar's retinue as it left the town and massacred it, under the pretext

of anticipating a rebellion. ‘Omar himself, after fighting back bravely, fled toward Mosul, but his horse stumbled and he was killed either by the fall or by his pursuers. His head arrived at Istanbul in March, to undisguised satisfaction at Topkapi, and Espenaqchi-zada took control of Baghdad. 2? Whether or not the murder of ‘Omar Pasha was appreciated by the Iranians as a

conciliatory gesture, “* it made no difference to the course of the war. Karim was, if anything, encouraged to take full advantage of the Turks' domestic quarrels and was justified in this by subsequent events in Baghdad. Espenaqchi-zada, who had injudiciously kept 'Omar's plundered possessions for himself, was made a scapegoat for his predecessor's death--in response to popular pressure in Baghdad--and replaced by one ‘Abdi Pasha. He reigned only a week before his place was usurped by 'Abdollah Pasha, who as ‘Omar's former kahya had been quietly recruiting support in the environs of Baghdad since his master's demise. Istanbul was constrained to recognize this fait accompli and shelve its schemes for regaining full contrcl of Baghdad. °2 In the meantime Basra, denied any help during this series of cours, had fallen to Sadeq Khan. The Porte, clearly embarrassed, kept this news to itself for some weeks--until 3 July--and then feigned indifference.*> 12.4 NEUTRALIZING THE NORTHERN FRONT

Despite a top-level conference at Topkapi in August and the arrival at Mosul in September of a serasker with sixty thousand men, 74 Still no formal declaration of war was made. At this point a new threat manifested itself: Erekle of Georgia, encouraged by the successes of his allies the Russians and of his nominal suzerain the Vakil and with his rear for once secure owing to the struggles of his rival Fath 'Ali Khan Qobba'i against a hostile Daghestani coalition, ignored the peace treaty and continued to raid the Ottoman pashalik of Akhaltsikhe.?> The pasha counterattacked, sounding letters were sent to all the Muslim khans in Erekle's rear (both quiescent foes and disaffected vassals), and circulars were sent to all 19. SP 97/51; 70b; Cevdet II, 56; Huart, 156. 20. SP 97/52, 8a, lla, 21b; Cevdet II, 56, 59; “Azzawi, Ta'rikh, 57. 21. Malcolm, 142; Miles, 274; cf. Rostam, 402. 22. SP 97/52, 74b, 75a; al-Basri, 41-43, 71; Cevdet II, 58; Longrigg, 182. 23. SP 97/52, 59a. 24. SP 97/52, 84b; FR XVII, 1107 (letter from a Roman Catholic priest in Shiraz, dated 16 September). 25. Brosset, 223, 242-43; cf. below, 13.4.

190 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79 the governors of northern Kurdistan and eastern Anatolia to levy reinforcements

for an invasion of Iran under the serasker of the east at Qars. But from reports sent back to Istanbul of the inadequacy of troops and supplies and from the lack of any aid more tangible than qualified promises by the rulers of Khoy, Erivan, Sheki, Shirvan, and Daghestan, it may fairly be assumed that the Porte had no means of defending this frontier, either, except for ad hoc shows of force by the local governors. To the government in Istanbul, ill-informed as to the limits of Karim Khan's influence over his northernmost vassals, the alarming specter presented itself of their entire eastern frontier from the Shatt ol-'Arab to the Caucasus--more than 1000 miles--cracking open to a new Iranian invasion.

Fortunately for all concerned, this demonstration of the Porte's active interest in its northeastern frontiers had the desired effect. Both Erekle and the khans swore--doubtless truthfully--that they had no intention of obeying orders from Karim Khan and--pro forma--that they would aid the Ottomans in the event of Zand aggression in the north. With self-righteous hyperbole they affirmed that, far from wishing to encroach, they considered themselves vassals of the sultan Since the Safavid throne was vacant and offered to provide hostages in token of

their good faith. But they stressed incidentally their own solidarity. The Porte and its officers took the hint: fur robes of honor, money, and other gifts were bestowed, both sides gratefully backed down, and the Azerbaijan front remained quiescent during the next year's campaigning in Kurdistan. “° 12.5 CONCLUSION OF THE KURDISTAN CAMPAIGNS

Late in 1776, Nazar 'Ali Khan Zand unexpectedly withdrew his whole force from Kermanshah and returned to Shiraz.?/ Hasan Pasha of Mardin was appointed to raise an army in Kerkuk and Mosul and restore Ottoman supremacy in Kurdistan; although essential reinforcements from Baghdad were delayed owing to ‘Abdollah Pasha's still precarious hold over the center, Hasan determined to launch an early spring offenSive against undefended Ardalan with his own levies and the Baban troops, under the field command of Mohammad Pasha. Ahmad Pasha, the former governor of Qara

Chowalan who had forfeited his post during the previous Iranian offensive, also joined the Baban advance.°® On 14 Rabi' I 1191/22 April 1777, Mohammad crossed~

the frontier and sacked Bana after defeating the governor, Saleh Khan, in a threehour battle. Khosraw Khan hastened to intercept him and at Mariwan on 27 Rabi' I/5 May was defeated with heavy losses; the vali and survivors fled back to

26. Hatt-i HimGyfin, 73, 82, 94h-m, 97, 113, 131; Cevdet II, 58-66; Nasiri, Bar-rastha-ye Tarikhi, X, No. 6, 144-53 (letters from the khans of Khoy and

Maragha); cf. SP 97/54 (1778), 91b; MT, 338. 27. SP 97/53 (1777), 68; Nasiri, Bar-rastha-ye Tarikhi X, No. 6, 140 (in which the Vakil claims this as a conciliatory gesture). 28. SP 97/53, 126, 150a; Cevdet II, 67; GM, 208.

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 19] Sanandaj, and more than 230 heads of the slain were sent to Hasan Pasha and in turn to Istanbul .7” From behind the fortress walls, Khosraw Khan sent to the Vakil for help. An immediate three-pronged push into the Kurdish provinces was ordered: 'Ali Morad to lead the armies of Hamadan and Kermanshah into southern Ardalan, Zu'l-Feqar Khan Afshar to swing in from the northeast, and the corps d'élite, under Kalb 'Ali Khan Zand (a son of the late Shaykh 'Ali) to march directly via Sanandaj. During the three or four months needed to mount this expedition, Hasan Pasha was able to muster a large force composed of Baghdad levies, twelve thousand reinforcements from the north, and a few thousand of Mohammad Pashats men. The three Zand columns had joined forces at Sanandaj and now met the Ottoman army one afternoon on

the plain of Shahrezur, near Sulaymani. With the glare of the setting sun in their eyes, the Turks suffered a crushing defeat; the Zands pursued them southward for several days, raiding uncomfortably close to Baghdad itself. They withdrew from Kurdistan after reinstating Ahmad, who had again switched his allegiance to the victor of the moment, as governor of Baban. * He again defeated, and captured, Mohammad even after the Zands' withdrawal, and proceeded to make his peace with the discomfited Hasan Pasha by humble apologies and protestations of loyalty, so securing Ottoman sanction for the post he had regained by Iranian arms > "Abdollah Pasha, left with few enough troops to defend Baghdad, let alone to

retake Basra as instructed, sought a settlement by negotiation. In the autum of 1777 he dispatched an embassy to Shiraz headed by Mohammad Beg Shavi-zada, an as-

tute statesman of Persian origin who had risen in mamluk service to become 'Abdollah's treasurer. Some progress was apparently made toward settling terms for the return of Basra, and hopes were rising when, toward the end of the year, Shavizada returned, accompanied by Haydar Khan Zangana as envoy from the Vakil.>? They were met at the border, however, with the news of 'Abdollah's death from dropsy. The ensuing contest for power with its street fighting and general chaos retarded negotiations at least until May 1778, when Hasan Pasha--appointed to the post a month earlier--arrived from Kerkuk. Finding himself still threatened by local factions, he sent for aid to Ahmad of Baban, who promptly blinded his prisoner Mohammad and marched on Baghdad. He died en route, and the Baban sanjaqs again exploded into anarchy .>> So, the next year, did Iran on the death of the Vakil; and for both powers, the vicarious battling and bargaining was over. 29. GM, 209; SP 97/53, 131b, 159b; FR XVII, 1144 (10 August 1777); Cevdet

II, 68; “Azzawi, Ta'rikh, 66-67; Zaki, Solaymaniya, 85. ‘Azzawi gives the size of Khosraw Khan's force as 12,000, Cevdet as 20,000. Ghaffari erroneously dates this

and the following campaign both in 1192/1778. 30. GM, 210; “Azzawi, Ta'rikh, 67-68; Zaki, Solaymaniya, 85; cf. SP 97/54

(1778), 52--a letter from Aleppo, referring to this or a subsequent victory, which the recipients note had been kept secret by the Porte. 31. Cevdet II, 112-13; Longrigg, 183. 32. Cevdet II, 111; SAzzawi, Ta'rikh, 68-71; Zaki, Solaymaniya, 87-88; SP

97/53, 27la; FR XVII, 1146 (18 October 1777); ANP, B1.176, 8 March 1778.

33. Cevdet II, 111, 113; Evers, 51; Longrigg, 184-85.

192 Consolidation and Expansion, 1763-79 12.6 BASRA UNDER SADEQ KHAN

Throughout the thirteen months of the siege and the ensuing three years of occupation, Basra had been virtually ignored by Istanbul, and even by Baghdad. As has already been seen, the sporadic attempts by the Porte to appoint a vali independent of Baghdad stemmed from a desire rather to diminish the power of the memluks than to promote the interests of Basra. Baghdad in turn, though it normally derived a considerable revenue from the port, was far too concerned with the much

closer threat from its Kurdish frontier to offer more than a gesture of help. The most striking conclusion to be drawn from a comparative study of the Persian and Ottoman sources for this war is that, for the Iranians, Basra was the goal and prize, while the Kurdish campaigns were a holding action, whereas, for the Turks, Kurdistan and Azerbaijan were the real threat and Basra an unimportant diversion. In reality, Karim Khan had not sufficient authority to unleash the warlords of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus into eastern Anatolia, nor the forces to attack Baghdad; he saw Basra as the front on which the sins of ‘Omar Pasha were to be requited, the hostage with which to force concessions elsewhere. That the diversions exploited on the Azerbaijan and Kurdistan frontiers worked only too well owed less to a miscalculation by either the Vakil or the pasha than to the extreme sensitivity of these regions and the adeptness of their

inhabitants at using the anxieties of their patrons to further their own feuds. Variations on this theme were to continue into the nineteenth and the present centuries.>* That Basra proved worthless as a hostage was a result both of the Ottoman preoccupation with Kurdistan and the independence and political instability of the Baghdad pashalik. That the port became not a rich commercial prize but an irrecoverable economic backwater after the Zand occupation can, however, be attribu-

ted at least in part to the nature and course of the occupation itself. Sadeq's triumphant entry into Basra on 21 April 1776 was marked by the striking of coins in Karim's name with the characteristic dedication to the Shi'i iman, the saheb ol-zaman, > and by the reconsecration of several mosques for Shi'i worship. ~° Later, on 18 June, a convoy of prisoners was sent under 'Ali Nagi Khan Zand to Shiraz. This comprised Solayman Aqa, the sons of Shaykh Darvish and of the leading Armenian merchant, and other distinguished hostages from the various national and religious groups of Basra.>” No proscription or immediate executions

34. The last full-scale clash between Iranian and Ottoman forces in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan was in 1821-23; see Sykes, 316-17. There were also incidents in 1906-7 and during the First World War (Sykes, 415). 35. GM, 200.

36. Shushtari, Tokfat, 145. Al-Basri (p. 35) also refers to a mosque of

Sadeq Khan in Basra, though without specifying whether built or adopted by him. 37. Sestini, 194; MAE Perse VIII, No. 7; Hovhanyants, 318; TGG, 209. Shushtari entertained Solayman Aq& and some of the other prisoners on their way through Shushtar and found much to admire in him; he told the ex-motasallem's fortune for

rca aie the correct forecast that he would become pasha of Baghdad (Tohfat,

Kurdistan and the Oceupatton of Basra 193 are recorded, and Sadeq's initial behavior would seem to justify the claims of the Persian chroniclers that he strictly respected all the terms of the capitulation~® A more jaundiced view soon emerges from the pens of the Europeans who were

there, though they themselves had little cause to complain. True it is that the East India Company employee who had remained in the town, a Mr. Galley, was po-

litely received by Sadeq and, at the instance of Shaykh Naser of Bushire, placed in possession of the undisturbed factory and its goods ;>~ that Sadeq respected the Vakil'’s farman delivered in May, instructing him to protect and preserve the company's people and goods in Basra;"? and that such was Sadeq's consideration for the company--or rather his obedience of his brother's injunction to keep the British happy while they resettled in Bushire--that when informed their residency was the only house in town fit for him, "he observed that if the walls had been of

Gold, he would not enter itl True it is that not all the Basrans had been reduced to penury and starvation by their heroic defense: on capitulation, over 3000 man of rice was found hoarded in the house of Shaykh Darvish. 7 But the majority of the inhabitants, rich and poor, whom Sadeq had no need to conciliate, suffered greatly from the occupiers' exactions. An indemity of 128,000 tumans was imposed by the vaki1*--a savagely high

figure for a town on the verge of famine, its trade and agriculture at a standStill after a year's siege. This burden was shared out among the various commmities, the Christians and Jews as a whole being liable for almost a quarter of the total, the Christians alone for 18,000 tumans or about one-seventh. The bulk of this was levied on the richer merchants and bankers and the leaders of the religious and national commmities, who in turn squeezed it as far as possible out of their clients. Notable among these were a refugee from New Julfa, Yarut'iun, who during the siege had organized the collection of a charity sum for relief of needy Armenians ;"" and Khwaja Ya'qub, a leading Jewish banker and broker to the East India Company, who had played a more active, even patriotic role--feeding the gar-

rison at his own expense and declaring to the motasallem "que s'il le fallait, pour défendre Bassora le lieu de sa naissance, il donnerait toutes ses perles 4 manger aux soldats."* Both had their sons sent to Shiraz to guarantee cooperation. Over and above this, commmity leaders had to provide "presents" to Sadeq and his officers to retain their freedom and positions. The bastinado and other tortures, summary arrest, and virtual looting were a universal and continual 38. FR XVII, 1126; TGG, 209.

39. Lorimer, 1262. Ghaffari (GM, 200) claims that the vali-ye Englis was among the prisoners sent to Shiraz; this perhaps refers only to a company interpreter or broker. 40. FR XVII, 1121, 1125-26; MAE Perse VIII, No. 7. 41. FR XVIT, 1132 (28 October 1776); Malcolm, 143. 42. FR XVII, 1126.

43. Carmelites, 674; cf. SP 97/52, 85a (125,000 tumans). 44, Hovhanyants, 317-18.

45. Sestini, 195.

194 Consolidation and Expanston, 1763-79 hazard. Nobody was allowed to leave the city, but many of the Muslim inhabitants at least managed to bribe the guards and flee further exactions before Sadeq put a

stop to this.”° The British now made up for their erratic behavior on the eve of the siege by doing what they could from their favored position to alleviate the general distress. They gained the goodwill of the native Arab population by ransoming many of the garrison and others the Iranians had made prisoner and prodded the Ottoman officials into doing likewise. Their intercession saved Khwaja Ya'qub from probable execution.” When he and the company's merchants were included in the list of contributors to the indemity, the resident remonstrated in vain with Sadeq; he was finally allowed to send his assistant, Abrahams, to Shiraz, where the latter was obliged to increase the amount of the company's present to the Vakil and was detained with various evasions before being eventually dismissed in mid-July with the quibble that the immmity granted to "the English and their People" did not include Turks, Jews, or Armenians. Meanwhile the indemnity was steadily extorted, responsibility for its collection having been farmed out to that ubiquitous opportunist, Shaykh Darvish. People were reduced to selling their effects and even their children on the streets, and some were driven to suicide by their utter destitution.*® Such measures were standard practice in conquered territories. And in fact, Sadeq's treatment of Basra, rough as it may seem in retrospect, looks remarkably fair and moderate when compared with the willful atrocities committed by Nader Shah and Agha Mohammad Qajar in several of the cities of Iran itself. Only when Sadeg left for Shiraz toward the end of the year, leaving 'Ali Mohammad Khan Zand to administer the city and province, ‘9 did the Iranian occupation degenerate--as all sources agree--into a chaos of unrestrained greed and senseless slaughter, a woefully apt prelude to the tragedy of Iran itself on the imminent death of the Vakil. 12.7 BASRA UNDER 'ALI MOHAMMAD KHAN

‘Ali Mohammad Khan Zand, known by the nickname shirkosh, "lion slayer," was the eldest son of Mohammad Khan bikala, one of Karim's most energetic lieutenants un-

til his capture by the Qajars at Qomeshah (3.3) and subsequent death in Mazandaran. ‘Ali Mohammad, as brave and impetuous as his father, but by all accounts mean and unscrupulous, had as his most notable exploit to date his joining Zaki Khan in revolt fifteen years previously (6.5).°2 He had arrived outside Basra during the 46. MAE Perse VIII, No. 7; FR XVII, 1132, 1137.

47, Sestini, 195, 198.

48. FR XVII, 1125, 1126, 1132; MAE Perse VIII, No. 7. 49. TGG, 209; GM, 200.

50. Except, that is, for the performance that earned him his nickname, as

described by Rostam (355-56): Karim, to punish him for his misconduct in Mazanda-

ran (9.4), had him placed in a lion's pit at the palace, armed only with a cloak

and a dagger. “Ali Mohammad ducked as the beast sprang; then, wrapping the cloak

round his left arm, he thrust it into the lion's mouth and dispatched it with the dagger, to the Vakil's applause.

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 195 summer of 1775 with reinforcements for Sadeq, accompanied by some or all of his four brothers. His appointment as governor by the returning Sadeq was immediately

marked by increased extortion and open disregard for the terms of the capitulation. In January 1777 Khwaja Ya'qub was seized and beaten by 'Ali Mohammad's men to

make him sign a bond for a further 6000 tumans. The company's interpreter was refused an interview with the khan to present their protests, so Latouche and his staff, having written to Karim Khan, barricaded themselves in the residency and refused all contact with the occupation forces, including an eventual offer of friendly talks with 'Ali Mohammad. In March came a reply from Karim Khan with orders to 'Ali Mohammad to treat the company and their servants with more considera-

tion. > It is unlikely that such orders had any effect on the hardships of Khwaja Ya'qub and hundreds like him. The Jews, though evidently fewer than the Christians (chiefly Armenians) in Basra, controlled a proportionately greater quantity of the city's wealth and would thus be subject to more flagrant extortion; but it is unlikely that they were in any more danger of massacre or more victimized as a minority than the Christians, or, for that matter, than the Sunni Turks and Arabs In addition to their greed for money, 'Ali Mohammad and his officers also began to satisfy their sexual appetites by abducting girls and even married women from their own homes. The khan took two Christian women from their husbands, kept them overnight in his harem, and dismissed them the next day; and on 17 February his men broke into the East India Company interpreter's house and abducted his

wife's seventeen-year-old sister.” He kept one girl, the daughter of a respected Arab physician, for three days before throwing her out; her father had waited for her, determined to kill her rather than let her live in dishonor, but love overcame his sense of outrage and he found a husband for her. ‘Ali Mohammad learned of the marriage and, in drunken fury, sent for father, daughter, and husband and demanded "how they durst to dispose of a person devoted to his pleasure?" He then had the men beheaded on the spot and had the unfortunate girl bring a bowl of water and wash the blood from the executioner's hands. The sequel was, in Capper's words, ''too shocking and too indecent to relate ."""4 Such was the monster who was left with a garrison of 7,500 to guard a city whose estimated population was then--as a combined result of the plague, the siege and the exactions of the occupation--a mere 20,000-30,000, and was to fall to 5000

or less during the next year.” Not content with having squeezed the town dry, ‘Ali Mohammad now turned his attention to the outlying districts. Any villagers ol. FR XVII, 1137; Lorimer, 1264. 592, See Levi (484), who contends that only Sadeq's leaving saved the Jews from massacre; it would seem more likely that they were in greater danger under Ali Mohammad.

53. Carmelites, 674; Capper, 222; FR XVII, 1138. 54. Capper, 222-23. 55. Capper, 222, 228; Sestini, 169, 195; Evers, 3.

196 Consoltdatton and Expansion, 1763-79 or tribesmen who were unlucky enough to fall foul of his forays were openly robbed, if not killed as well. The Montafeq (led by Shaykh Thamer, since 'Abdollah's

death the previous year) suffered especially in these raids. Moreover, they were dependent on what was left of Basra for their trade and hence were at pains to keep peace with the conquerors. °° They even sent a delegation, humbly requesting him to swear solemnly on the Qor'an to grant them safe conduct when next they came to town. To this he assented, then immediately broke his pledge by attacking and plundering their people yet again. Enraged, the Montafeq breached the dikes and flooded the surrounding desert, and a body of them ambushed a Zand raiding party

and routed it with considerable loss early in June 1778.>/ In reprisal, 'Ali Mohammad on 1 July raided al-Zobayr, the Arabian border town some three farsakhs from Basra, described by Carmichael some decades previously as "a most wretched

and dirty place" of about seven hundred inhabitants. Having looted it, he set it on fire and cut down all who tried to fight the flames. The men were butchered and the women and children enslaved, though later ransomed by the East India Company .>®

‘Ali Mohammad now determined to crush the Montafeq once and for all. Leaving over Basra Mohammad Hosayn Khan Behbahani and his youngest brother 'Ali Hemmat

Khan Zand with a garrison of two thousand, he marched north at the head of almost

Six thousand Iranian cavalry plus auxiliary infantry. According to the Persian chroniclers, the Montafeq now regretted their provocation and sought to buy off the vengeful Zand with offers of tribute, which he refused; but it seems more likely that the angry tribesmen considered they had nothing to lose by opting for a decisive battle--which they could easily have avoided, had they chosen--and planned their tactics accordingly. The Montafeq advance guard of a few thousand apparently drew the Persian army

back to the banks of the Shatt, about fifteen miles from Basra, where the main force, some eight thousand men under Shaykh Thamer, were waiting on chosen ground. On 11 September ‘Ali Mohammad's army was allowed to cross the river in boats they

had requisitioned for the purpose, and then the trap was sprung. Two sides of their bridgehead were surrounded by a loop of the river, the third side led into a swamp, and the fourth was held by Shaykh Thamer: when the Iranians charged they were maneuvered into the swamp and the outlet closed behind them. While their horses floundered in the mud, the Montafeq waded in or waited till their enemies struggled out and cut them down or captured them at their ease. A few only escaped in the boats. 'Ali Mohammad was felled by a blow on the neck from a black swordsman and expired a few hours later. His brother Mahdi Khan was also killed. The Montafeq lost only a score of men. Such was the carnage, it is said, that only three survivors reached Basra; the stripping of the battlefield took weeks, S56. SP 97/53, 85a. S57. TGG, 212; GM, 212; FR XVII, 1157; SP 97/54, 253. 58. Carmichael, 53; Capper, 224; SP 97/54, 253, 271.

Kurdistan and the Occupatton of Basra 197 and the bones of the slain marked the site for a generation after.” 12.8 THE END OF THE OCCUPATION

The Montafeq then surrounded Basra--and made off with a few tons of dates .° Content with their victory and the plunder, they ignored what would have been an ex-

cellent opportunity to oust the remaining Iranians. Indeed, had they fought with such intelligence and zeal at Sowayb, when Sadeq was preparing to cross the Shatt, the invaders might never have reached Basra in the first place. But the city was a convenience only and took second place to tribal freedom, safety, and honor. Mohammad Hosayn and ‘Ali Hemmat Khan immediately sent couriers to Shiraz and

waited while Sadeq rushed back with a fresh force of four thousand horse. He arrived on 24 December and opened talks with Shaykh Thamer for an honorable submis-

sion of the Montafeq. But their newly won freedom was not to be surrendered so easily and, taking exception to certain pro-Shi'a clauses in Sadeq's terms, they

rejected his offers .°. If the outlying regions were now lost to the Zands, the city itself was in such poor shape that it must hardly have seemed worth keeping. What the plague, the siege, and Sadeq's occupation had missed, 'Ali Mohammad had destroyed. At the time of Sadeq's return, looking in Capper's words "very handsome" with his fine retinue and army, the same writer notes that "the principal streets were like a burying ground, with scarcely a space of three feet between each grave. "07 On_y

a year later, Sestini wrote: ‘The city of Basra is quite dilapidated; the PerSians have utterly devastated it.'' Blockade and depopulation had ruined Basra commercially for several generations. While the occupation was still lingering on, Sestini noted that no more pearls were brought to Basra for export (that particular trade at least having moved to Muscat), that the Aleppo caravans arrived only rarely, and that the big annual caravan of goods assembling at Zobayr for the markets of Aleppo and Damascus, formerly worth at least 6000 tumans, was now bare-

ly worth 2000.99 Basra was still dilapidated and Zobayr still deserted almost

ten years later.“ The rates of customs duty under Zand occupation were not raised, but the East India Company for one were greatly disappointed that the standard three per cent import duty on their woollens payable under the Turks was not in practice 59. TGG, 212-13; GM, 213; Cevdet II, 114; SAzzawi, Ta'rikh, 79-81; al-Basri, 36-41; Capper, 225; Evers, 8-11; Carmelites, 674; SP 97/55, 18b, 29; FR XVII, 1161; Longrigg, 193. Evers names the site of the battle as "Argia,"” evidently Niebuhr's "Ardsje" (i.e., “Arja) on the Euphrates just west of Kut (Reise, Tab. XL), which seems too far from Basra. Capper's report of an unnamed site only fifteen miles from Basra seems more realistic.

60. SP 97/55, 29.

61. TGG, 214-15; GM, 213; Longrigg, 194.

62. Capper, 228. 63. Sestini, 192, 198-200. 64, Abdul Qadir, 60/51.

198 Consoltdatton and Expanston, 1763-79 abolished, despite all the Vakil's favorable farmans .°° The Court of Directors seriously considered a complete withdrawal from Basra and in fact demoted the agency to a residency again. Other merchants had already turned their attention to other Gulf ports, notably Kuwait, which can date its rise to prominence from this period. Before the Siege, Qorayn, as it was then known, had generally been considered a dependency of Basra, at least by the Ottoman governors. But with the political and commercial

collapse of its larger neighbor, the emigration of the Gulf merchants and the British desert mail station from Basra and Zobayr to Kuwait combined with the rise of the Al Sabah to promote the increasing prosperity of this shaykhdom.©° Sadeq was undoubtedly shrewd enough to realize that Basra, milked of her

ready cash, was now a liability and that, with negotiations at a standstill in faction-ridden Baghdad, the town was also useless as a bargaining platform. He

was reportedly "heartily tired of that place, and it is thought would be glad it were given back to the Turks ."°7 He had also noted the grave turn taken by the Vakil's illness while in Shiraz, and this spur to protect his own interest in the succesSion was, perhaps more than anything else, the reason he began early in 1779 to build a fortress on the left bank of the Shatt to cover his expected withdrawal. On 13 March he received word of the Vakil's death and, entrusting the administration of Basra to Shaykh Darvish and the motasallem's secretary Molla Ahmad, set off for Shiraz with all his men six days later. Shortly afterwards the town was occupied by Shaykh Thamer, at whose invitation the pasha sent in troops and a motasaliem No'man Efendi to restore Ottoman authority .°° He also sent a message of condolence to Shiraz.°” Meanwhile the former motasallem Solayman had been released from captivity in the Zand capital and turned up at the gates of Basra. Backed by the delighted populace and the Khaza'el Arabs, he swept aside Thamer and No'man to recover his former post. On 20 November, he secured the vacant pashalik of Baghdad, with the acquiescence of the Porte. /? History had repeated itself

fifty years later, even to the name of its favorite (11.2). 12.9 THE DEATH OF KARIM KHAN

As early as 1776, rumors of the Vakil's illness had been spreading, though denied by those who had met him. “2 The coincidental withdrawal then of both Sadeq Khan from Basra and Nazar 'Ali from Kurdistan might conceivably have been a reaction

to such an alarm--for consultations, either official or unofficial, on the question of succession. In 1777 or 1778 the death of a namesake of the Vakil, one 65. FR XVII, 1143. 66. Cf. Lorimer, 145-47, 1002; Wilson, 184; Nash'tat, 460-61. 67. SP 97/55, 81. 68. Ibid., 99; Longrigg, 193; Lorimer, 1264. 69. Gmélin II, 483-84. 70. Al-Basri, 82-83; SP 97/55, 259a. 71. SP 97/53, 95a.

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 199 Karim Khan Borbor, intensified these rumors and gave rise to disorders among the Lurs and Bakhtyaris, who raided Armenian and Georgian settlements west of Isfahan; there was even a rebellion in Julfa. After a month, when it was known that the

Vakil was still alive, peace returned.’ However, in 1778 the symptoms of an illness from which he had been suffering for some time, probably tuberculosis ,’> increased in severity; and though he remained active and still personally supervised affairs of state, it was evident that a man of more than seventy in his condition could not last long. The stage was set for civil war in the capital as well as the provinces. He seems to have made no definite provision for his succession. His eldest son, Abu'1-Fath Khan, though aged twenty-five, had shown no signs of a capacity for anything except wine; his twenty-year-old brother, Mohammad 'Ali, was likewise frivolous, and Mohammad Ebrahim, the third, was a child of eleven.“ The course of events on Karim's death shows that Abu'i-Fath was probably expected to succeed

him, but during his father's lifetime the question was complicated by the lack of clear precedent for the office of vakil. Shah Esma'il III, the ostensible king, had died in 1187/1773, though his death went virtually unnoticed;> there seems to have been no question of a successor to the vacant throne, and the office of vakil, shorn of its official raison d'étre, had now proved by its unimpaired survival that it was in fact equivalent to that of shah. Nevertheless, the theory of the Safavid dynasty's continuing its shadowy existence would not allow the Vakil to nominate a successor, a valt ‘ahd, without this implying a Naderesque usurpatim of the throne. Perhaps he assumed optimistically that the leadership would devolve upon his younger brother Sadeq, or his cousin Zaki, by some such process of deference to seniority and ability as it had originally come to him and did not foresee the bitter bloodshed and dynastic ruin his death would cause. One day as he was riding to the palace the Vakil fainted and fell from his horse. His son Abu'l-Fath rushed to his side, and he was carried inside and put to bed. All efforts to save him failed, and during the night of 13 Safar 1193/1 March 1779 he died.’ For three days Karim's body lay unburied while his family shot and hacked at each other, and only when Zaki Khan had slaughtered all opponents, actual and potential, did he don mourning and bury the Vakil in a garden adjacent to his 72. Hovhanyants, 318-19. Karim Khan Borbor is mentioned also by Ghaffari

ey as an officer of Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar during the siege of Shiraz 73. GM, 214; TGG, 216. Most sources indicate a respiratory ailment: Ghaffari has seZZ (tuberculosis), the Kalantar (p. 66) khonaq (croup), but other verSions exist (Hovhanyants gives gout); cf. H. Hedayati, Tartkh-e Zandiya, 155-56. The Vakil's exact age is not known. According to his Carmelite physician, he was 68 in 1776 (SP 97/53, 95a}; Butkov (II, 70-71) gives 80. 74. TGG, 216; GM, 220; Malcoln, 153.

75. GM, 174; Fasa'i I, 219. For a discussion of Karim Khan's title, see art GM, 214-15; TGG, 216; SP 97/55, 99a-b; ANP, B1.197, 15 June 1779.

200 Consolidatton and Expanston, 1763-79 palace. // This was probably the Bagh-e Nazar, the grounds of the octagonal pavilion known as the Kolah-e Farangi (which was until recently the Pars Museum) where

traces of a grave thought to have been that of the Vakil were found in 1938,/8 Meanwhile, Agha Mohammad Khan had slipped away as soon as the Vakil breathed his

last, to initiate the burial of the Zand dynasty as a whole. Thirteen years later when the eunuch shah seized Shiraz, he exhumed the Vakil's body (by some accounts

the head only), took it back to Tehran, and buried it beneath the steps of a building in the northwest corner of the Golestan Palace (which thus came to be called the khalvat-e Karim Khani), where in ghoulish vindictiveness he took pleasure in being able to tread his enemy's bones underfoot whenever he walked abroad.’ This is not the end of the tale. The Vakil's bones were moved from this unjust grave, but when and whither is still in dispute. Fath ‘Ali Shah is said to have exhumed them and sent them for reburial at Najaf or Shiraz. °? Some one hundred twenty years later, however, in 1304 or 1306 Solar (between 1925 and 1927), Reza Shah ceremoniously disinterred some remains from beneath the same steps in the presence of several members of the Zand family (who presented him with the Vakil's sword) ,°! with the intention of sending them under a guard of honor to Shiraz. However, owing to the sudden illness of the crown prince (the present shah), the transfer of the remains was postponed, and they were apparently stored among the crown jewels in the Golestan Palace. When these were brought out in 1317/1938, on the eve of Prince Mohammad Reza's wedding to Fawzieh, a canvas bag came to light which purportedly contained the bones of Karim Khan; they were sent for burial to the Emamzada-ye Zayd, where Lotf 'Ali Khan had been interred in 1794 (Epilogue). But doubt remains: was the reinterment planned by Reza Shah in fact carried out, or did some descendant of the Vakil secretly carry his bones to Shiraz,

or to his birthplace at Pari?” We will probably never know. There remains his empty grave in the Xolah-e Farangi, in the midst of the many monuments with which he embellished his already beautiful capital; and his memory, most succinctly expressed in a chronogram of his death--in its sad

77. TGG, 217-19. For subsequent events, see Epilogue. 78. Sami, Shiraz, 35. According to Esfahani (6b), Karim was buried in the

shrine of Shah Mir Hamza.

79. Brydges, cvii; cf. Zoka, 111, 112, 115. Brydges quotes another version and scattered to the winds. 80. Karimi, Rahnama, 9; G. N. Curzon I, 313; cf. H. Hedayati, Tartkh-e according to which Agha Mohammad had the bones burned before him in a chafing dish Zandiya, 162.

81. Zoka, 115, 119, 120; on p. 120 there is a photograph of this occasion (cf. H. Hedayati, Tarikh-e Zandiya, 162; Lockhart, Persian Cittes, 48 note). The sword was kept for some time in the Golestan Palace, but was subsequently put on display with other Zand relics in the Pars Museum at Shiraz. Zoka assumes that the remains were then transferred to the mausoleum of the Safavid shahs at Qom; Hadi Hedayati, that they were sent (or it was intended to send them) to Najaf (cf. Mehraz, 428). 82. Golsha'ian, "Arg-e Karimkhani" (I am indebted to Anne Betteridge for sending me this interesting article).

Kurdistan and the Occupation of Basra 201 Simplicity perhaps the most sincere example of what is essentially an artifical exercise: Ay vay, Karim Khan mord, ‘Alas, Karim Khan is deaa 1°?

83. Esfahani, 6b; Binning, 268. The numerical values of the letters that

constitute the phrase add up to 1193. Other chronograms are given by H. Hedayati, Tartkh-e Zandiya, 156-57.

Part Three

Iran under Karim Khan

13

Government, Land, and People

13.1 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRE

In following the course of the campaigns that brought Karim Khan to power and the policies that kept him in control of his empire, a good many concepts have so far had to be taken for granted. Terms such as "Iran," "rule," and "vakil" require

more precise definition in the special context of the Zand interlude. It is the purpose of this and the subsequent chapters to attempt such definitions and further develop themes alluded to above. The geographical and political concept of Iran inherited by the Zands was fundamentally that of the Safavids, which neither Afghan, Turkish, and Russian inroads nor Nader Shah's usurpation and expansion of the empire had succeeded in changing. But practice is more elastic than concept; Iran could not possibly have emerged unchanged after the military and dynastic upheavals she had undergone between 1722 and 1751. This divergence between the traditional concept and the changing political reality makes it more difficult, but all the more necessary, to sketch a redefinition of the country as ruled by Karim Khan. We begin with a geographical definition of the Vakil's domain. The incorporation of Lar, Kerman, eastern Persian Iraq, southern Azerbaijan, the Zagros provinces, Khuzestan, and the Gulf littoral has been described, as has their administrative status during 1763-79. It remains to delineate some of the more shadowy frontiers and to assess the relationship of the Zand dispensation to those portions of the preceding Iranian empires that were now effectively outside the Vakil's jurisdiction. The most succinctly accurate and realistic summary of Karin Khan's empire is that of ‘Abd ol-Razzaq Beg: the Vakil's realm stretched from the Aras south of Erivan to the Straits of Hormuz, and he was content with occasional tribute from fringe areas--listed as Qarabagh and Erivan, Oman, Kurdistan, and Dashtestan.Sistan and Baluchestan, never strongly held even under the Safavids and regarded by Nader merely as a source of manpower, had remained aloof from the wrangling in western Iran that followed on Nader's assassination and, under Nasir Khan Baluch of Kalat, had been partially absorbed into the new Afghan empire of Ahmad Shah Dorrani at about the same time that Karim Khan set himself up as Vakil in

1. Donboli, Tajreba I, 131. 205

206 Iran under Karim Khan Isfahan.“ Raiding parties of Baluch threatened the region of Kerman and Bandar "Abbas throughout the period from 1747 to 1752 or even later, but had apparently ceased by the time of Karim's first attempts to secure Kerman.” Kerman was to be the easternmost province of Zand Iran, its eastern marches of Bam and Narmashir administered in part by a local chief, Amir Beg Sistani, and extending perhaps over most of present-day Iranian Sistan and Baluchistan.“ The province would alsc have comprised the various shaykhdoms of the Makran coast to the east of Minab, but to what degree control was exercised is difficult to judge. The natural frontiers of the Lut and Kavir deserts separated the Zand state from the Afsharid kingdom of Khorasan, which from 1755 was effectively a client state of Ahmad Shah. This included nominally the towns of Quhestan such as Birjand and Tabas, and in the northwest bordered on the Qajar principality of Astara-

bad in the region of Jajorm. It is at first sight surprising that the Vakil never tried to annex this pathetic remnant with its blind puppet-king and squabbling emirs. The traditional view, that he held the descendants of his former chief Nader in too great respect to molest then,” 1s disingenuous: Karim's ceaseless Struggle for dominion in western [ran alone, occupying the first dozen years of his reign, left him no leisure to think of Khorasan, to which Ahmad Shah had already staked his claim. During the latter's incursion of 1754-55 there were constant rumors that he was preparing to invade Iran.° Karim Khan was reported to have received friendly notes from Ahmad, then at Nishapur, urging joint action against the "Traitor and Vagabond" Azad and promising money and men if Karim would

help him conquer Iran--to which the Vakil replied noncommittally./ In the event the Dorrani forces had to withdraw and the danger passed (Prologue). Bokhari implies that the Dorrani king signed a treaty of friendship with Karim. It seems fair to assume that these two powerful contemporaries, having divided Nader's empire so neatly between them, simply agreed tacitly to keep Khorasan as a buffer between their separate interests and hostile peoples. Karim evidently realized that from an economic viewpoint, too, a costly subjugation of an already ruined province would only precipitate his own ruin. As Forster observed: The Persians say that Kureem Khan . . . was often urged by his officers to carry his arms into Khorasun, a conquest which would necessarily have given him supreme domination of Persia; but though brave and enterprising, he had too long indulged in the pleasures of Shiraz, and used to palliate

2. Gubar, 301; Goldsmid, 401.

3. Reports of such raids are frequent in GD, e.g., VI, 8 January 1752.

4. Vaziri, 333.

5. Cf. Rostam, 337-38; Partaw-Bayza'i, 60. 6. Rostam, 241; SP 97/33, 324b; SP 97/38, 29 September 1754, 20 January 1755; GD VII, 11 August 1754; VIII, 1 February 1756.

7. SP 97/38, 12 July 1755. 8. '"“Ahd-e mosafat bast,'' quoted by Mann, "Quellenstudien," 356.

Government, Land, and People 207 his reluctance to the proposed expedition by observing that after the long and dangerous siege of a small fort, nothing would be found in it, but a few bags of chopped straw for his horse.” Contact between Shahrokh Shah of Khorasan and Karim Khan was limited to two

visits to Shiraz by Shahrokh's son, Nasrollah Mirza, which were attempts to further personal and factional ends rather than embassies. The first of these came soon after Nawruz 1181/1767, when Taqi Khan Zand, governor of Khwar on the road

from Semnan, sent word of the prince's sudden arrival. Karim issued instructions that he was to be cordially received all along his route, and he himself welcomed Nasrollah at Shiraz as if he were his own son. It appeared from letters the prince had brought from Shahrokh that the purpose of his visit was to request military help against the threat of a further invasion by Ahmad Shah; but Karim was informed confidentially by one of the prince's suite that his father wished him to be kept at Shiraz for as long as possible while his younger brother Nader Mirza, Shahrokh's favorite, was quietly installed as viceroy of Khorasan in Nasrollah's place. Karim is said to have complied by entertaining the prince generously for the next six months; at the end of that time he reluctantly sent off his guest with presents and letters to his father, but no more than the promise of troops. 19 Early in 1775 Nasrollah again visited Shiraz, probably to solicit help against his father and younger brother, while the Vakil was involved with the Kurdistan campaigns and the siege of Basra. Nasrollah is said to have remained in Shiraz until the accession of 'Ali Morad Khan seven years later, when he returned to Mashhad and regained power. 21 13.2 THE CASPIAN COAST

The vacillating allegiance of the Qajars in Damghan, Astarabad, and Mazandaran has already been considered (chap. 9). Gilan, which under the Safavids had been crown land (khassa), Was incorporated by Mohammad Hasan into the Qajar realms, but administered separately by local governors. This system continued under the Zands after 1759. The provincial governor at Rasht, Hajji Jamal Fumani, was killed at Shaft in the early 1750s by Aqa Hadi Shafti, in pursuance of a feud that had continued from the time of Shah Soltan Hosayn and was to last into the nineteenth century. The murderer then ruled Gilan jointly with Mirza Zaki, the na'eb of Gaskar, for about three months, before he was surprised and killed by the Qajar chief, who installed Hajji Jamal's young son Hedayatollah as governor of Rasht under a local guardian. /4 Karim Khan had him brought to Tehran and substituted

9. Forster I, 187-88. 10. GM, 161-63; E°temad 01-Saltana, Matla© ol-Shams, 343; MI, 98; Kuhmarra'i,

422-25; Butkov I, 247; Mann, "Quellenstudien ," 170. _ ©

11. Kuhmarra'i, 425-38; Qazvini, 125a-b; E-temad ol-Saltana, Matla™ ol-Shams, 345; FR XVII, 1065 (1 February 1775); Butkov II, 76; III, 140. 12. Rabino, Les‘provinces casptennes, 473; "Rulers of Lahijan and Fiman," 98; Malcolm, 461 note; Gmnélin I, 417-18.

208 Iran under Karim Khan his own governor in 1759 or 1760, but while the Vakil was involved with the siege of Urmiya, Hedayatollah fled back to Rasht and reinstalled himself as governor. Karim had him arrested and fined 12,000 tumans and sent Nazar 'Ali Khan Zand to administer Rasht for the duration of his stay in Azerbaijan (5.7). On leaving for Shiraz, however, the Vakil appointed Hedayatoliah and in 1181/1767-68 even married his son Abu'l Fath Khan to a sister of his governor of strategic Gilan.*> Hedayatollah was to control this keystone of the northern provinces in semiindependence

until his death seven years after that of the Vakil. His long and active rule attracted considerable interest and comment, particularly evident in European sources. He maintained a brilliant court, well furnished with strong liquor and Georgian slaves, and a salaried standing army of fifteen hundred men, which he could augment to ten thousand with provincial levies. As well as his revenue from the rich local produce, especially silk, he derived profit from the poll tax on the large Armenian community and from trade with the Russians, who kept a fortified trading post at Anzali (15.2). Though Forster describes him in his sixties as enjoying a revenue of £200,000, and reputedly "rapacious, tyrannical and pusillanimous," Gmelin asserts that he was not unduly extortionate and kept the populace content. He prudently remitted a twice-yearly tribute to Shiraz {equivalent to 80,000 rubles in cash and 40,000 in kind), supplemented by gifts and special orders of silks, /4 and apparently fell foul of the Vakil on only one more occasion. This was about 1768 or 1770, when the na'eb of Lahijan, summoned to Rasht by Hedayatollah, was shot dead en route--reputedly on the governor's orders, since he suspected his loyalty. Karim ordered an investigation, but nothing was proved, and the Vakil merely took an extra annual contribution of 500 man of Silk so long as the case remained unsolved.?> About the same time, Hedayatollah annexed Tonokabon, formerly governed by

Ebrahim Khan 'Amarlu, though the administration of the district seems to have remained with one Mahdi Beg Khal'atbari, who was appointed by the vaki1.l® As early as 1773, evidently threatened by the Qajar resurgence, Hedayatollah applied to be taken under Russian protection, *’ and when this was refused, began in 1779 to drive out Russian merchants and solicit help from Fath 'Ali Khan of Qobba against

13. GM, 164-65. 14. Forster I, 219; Arunova and Ashrafyan, "Novye Materialy,"' 112; Gmélin I], 418-20. His annual remittance according to the Russian sources would be equiva-

lent to some £24,000/12,800 tumans, or 12 per cent of his annual revenue if Forster's estimate is accurate; cf. Rostam's figure of 25,000 tumans (= £46,875 approx.) for the revenue of Gilan (table 1). 15. Rabino, Les provinces caspiennes, 474. Arunova and Ashrafyan ("Novye

Materialy,'' 112) mention that the rate of taxation increased in 1768; if this applied only locally, it could be the result of such an amercement. Rostam asserts

(371-72) that Hedayatollah rebelled twice against Karim Khan and on both occasions was defeated and pardoned. 16. Rabino, M@zandaran and Astarabad, 15.

17. Butkov I, 131; II, 79.

Government, Land, and People 209 the advancing Qajars.1® He was forced from power by Agha Mohammad Khan in 1781,”

but soon came to terms and was reinstated. Hedayatollah continued the family feud, killing Aga Rafi' Shafti and his five brothers and nephews. This was to be his undoing, for in 1786, when Agha Mohammad again attacked in response to renewed de-

fiance by Hedayatollah, encouraged by the Russians, the Russian "protectors" to whom he fled handed him over to the only surviving male of the Shafti family, Aga "Ali, who slew him. Fath 'Ali Shah in turn utilized this vendetta--by encompassing the death of Aga 'Ali--to secure his hold over this difficult province. 7° 13.3 THE KHANATE OF QOBBA AND THE GEORGIAN KINGDOM

It will be shown below that the River Aras up to its confluence with the Kura, and the Kura from here to the Caspian, must be considered the northern boundary of provinces owing direct allegiance and paying regular taxes or tribute to the Vakil

during the settled part of his reign (1763-79). The political history of the regions governed by the Afshars of Urmiya and the Donbolis of Khoy, Salmas, and

Tabriz (Cisaraxia) has been outlined above (5.7); the internal history of northern Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia (Transaraxia) during this period, rich and fasCinating as it is, will be considered in the next two sections only insofar as it bears upon Karim Khan's realm.

The Transaraxian territories adjacent to Iranian Azerbaijan (the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti and their southern dependencies of Ganja and Qarabagh, the city-states of Shirvan northeast of the Kura, and the Caspian littoral east of Daghestan) had been considered tributaries of Iran since the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Safavid shahs Esma'il and Tahmasb imposed their rule on most of the local dynasties. The next two centuries saw much fluctuation in the degree of control actually exercised from Iran. In the 1720s this region, like all of northwestern Iran, was partitioned between Russia and the Ottoman Empire; *? and even when Nader restored Iran's former frontiers, his attempts to impose a stricter control north of the Aras failed utterly. His Daghestan expedition of 1741-42 was a costly fiasco, and constant revolts throughout the area from Darband to Tiflis nullified any schemes he might have had to incorporate these vassal states as Iranian provinces .77 Perhaps the proximity of Ardabil, spiritual home of the Safavid dynasty, made Transaraxia conceptually an inalienable part of Iran, for both Zand chroniclers and Russian and Ottoman diplomatists continued to refer to the region as if it were still part of a neo-Safavid empire even while

18. Butkov II, 71, 80; III, 147; Bakikhanov, 166-67 (see further, 15.2). 19. Butkov II, 82-83; III, 157.

20. Rabino, "Rulers of L&ahijan and Fiman,'' 98-99; Malcolm, 461-62; Forster

I, 219; Atkin, 52-53. See also Gnélin I, 391; Ferriéres de Sauveboeuf, 4-5; G. N.

Curzon I, 375-76. 21. See Lockhart, Safavt Dynasty, 176-89. 22. See Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 197 ff., 238; Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo, 263.

210 Iran under Karim Khan events were clearly changing its orientation. On Nader's death, his appointees on both sides of the Aras were faced initially with the choice of joining or opposing the coalition of Azad Khan and Fath "Ali Khan Afshar (3.1). Kazem Khan of Qaraja-dagh submitted to Azad, survived sub-

sequent alliances, and maintained his position by submitting in turn to Karim Khan. 2° Panah Khan Javanshir of Qarabagh, immediately to the north, was forced intermittently from 1750 to accept a Georgian protectorate, but successfully defied Afghan, Qajar, and Afshar assaults from his fortress of Shisha (Shusha) “4 and was at war with Kazem Khan in summer 1175/1762 when Karim Khan's forces appeared

on the banks of the Aras. He tendered his submission and, like Kazem Khan, acconpanied the Zand army back to Shiraz, leaving his eldest son Ebrahim Khalil Khan to govern Qarabagh in the Vakil's name.7> Other Transaraxian hostages taken at the Same time were: Hajji Khan Kengerlu of Nakhchevan; the nephews of Hosayn ‘Ali Khan, governor of Erivan; Reza Qoli Khan of Ganja; and Shahverdi Khan Zeyadoghiu Qajar, former beglerbegi of Qarabagh.”° Greater Shirvan, from the Shamkhalate through Darband (Derbent) to Baku and

west to Sheki, was dominated for the next forty years by the Khanate of Qobba (Kuba). Hasan 'Ali Khan had extended his domain north to Darband and south to Saliyan in Nader's time; his son and successor from 1171/1758, Fath 'Ali Khan (known as Qobba'i and Darbandi) expanded by military campaigns, intrigues, and marriage alliances until his sphere of influence covered virtually the whole of eastern Transaraxia, bounded to the south by Iran, to the north by Russia, and tc the west by Georgia.*’ In 1774 a coalition led by his Daghestan rival, the Usmi of the Qaraqaytaq, besieged Fath 'Ali in Darband for nine months. The siege was raised by the timely arrival the next spring of a Russian army, which had been sent primarily to chastise the Usmi for having imprisoned the Russian naturalist Gmelin. Fath 'Ali, however, made shrewd use of this deus ex machina to recover and even extend his former hegemony, which he retained until his death in 1789.7° In 1745, Nader Shah had reestablished the Georgian monarchy with Taymoraz

over Kartli and his son Erekle over Kakheti. Excessive taxation produced constant insurrection, and Taymoraz himself was on his way to Mashhad to petition for a reduction when the tyrant was assassinated. He subsequently found himself in the 23. MT, 188-89; TGG, 114; GM, 89, 120.

24. Butkov I, 238-40; Brosset, 235, 237; Lang, Last Years, 148-49. Shisha is the usual Persian form, Shusha the Russian form of this name. Ganja was renamed Yelizavetpol' after 1822 and Kirovabad after 1917. Russian or Turkish variants of other place names will be given in parentheses. 25. TGG, 114; GM, 88-89, 113; 120; Bakikhanov, 162; Butkov I, 386; II, 97. 26. TGG, 114; GM, 120.

27. For details, see Bakikhanov, 165-66; Butkov III, 108-12. 28. For details of the Darband episode, see Bakikhanov, 165-66; Butkov III, 134-40; Baddeley, 37-38; Akademiya Nauk, Istoriya Dagestana, 378-79. For a historiographical discussion, see Perry, "Iran, Russia and the Caucasus,' and correspondence with M. Rawshanzamir in Bar-rastha-ye Tarikhi X, No. 3, 247-49. Fath “Ali's subsequent career is chronicled by Bakikhanov, 166-70.

Goverrment, Land, and People 211 train of Nader's nephew and successor and his own son-in-law, 'Adel Shah, and was captured by Ebrahim Shah, who reluctantly allowed him to re{)rn home in 1748. Meanwhile, Erekle ousted the Afsharid protégé from Tiflis and, in his late twenties, became the most powerful rule north of the Aras. On Shahrokh Shah's accession, both monarchs were automatically confirmed. ?? But it was already evident that Mashhad was no longer the seat of empire. Reports reaching Ottoman and European observers about 1750 portray Erekle as waiting to tender his allegiance to whoever should gain the throne of Iran, secure against the turmoil south of the Aras with an army forty thousand strong, and wary of both Ottomans and Russians 70 Erekle's hegemony, like that of Fath 'Ali Khan, was constantly threatened, vigorously preserved, but ultimately perished with his death in 1798. His only friend and ally in the west was King Solomon of Imeretia, himself constantly men-

aced by the Turks. In 1749 Erivan was first obliged to pay tribute, which had to be exacted by force ora show of force on at least four more occasions up to 1780° t In Ganja, Shahverdi Khan Zeyadoghlu Qajar declared to the Ottomans in 1750 that in the absence of a shah he was loyal to the sultan; ~~ but under harassment by Panah Khan Javanshir, the Avars, and internal rebels, he was content to be protected or subsidized by Erekle--as, after 1768, was his son Mohammad Hasan Khan. °° Ebrahim Khalil Khan's Qarabagh, with its large Armenian population, was brought into Erekle's orbit after 1760, but evidently maintained a measure of independence.~“

In 1752 Erekle attempted to form a coalition with the khans of Shusha, Qarabagh, Erivan, and Nakhchevan against the powerful Hajji Chelebi of Sheki, but the latter attacked first and the league collapsed.~° Although Erekle and his Circassian guard drove out the invaders, this threat probably prompted Taymoraz' first appeal for Russian aid and offer of subjection to the empress. The response was discouraging, as also in 1760, when Taymoraz himself went to plead for protection against Lezgin raids .~° The aged monarch died on the way back, leaving Erekle de jure as well as de facto king of Kartli-Kakheti. In 1768 the Porte declared war on Russia and began conferring with the Usmi and the Shamkhal to concert their efforts against their Christian neighbors .~” This time the Russian command grudgingly answered Solomon's and Erekle's plea for assistance, with a token force of

29. Brosset, 158, 228-31; Peyssonnel part ii, 109, 110, 153; cf. Lockhart,

Nadir Shah, 259; Lang, Last Years, 144-48. 30. MAE Perse VII, No. 81. 31. Brosset, 155-56, 162-63; SP 97/35, 95b (25 August 1750); Butkov III, 146, 154; Tsintsadze, 139-40; Hatt-i Hum@yfin,-73 (1189); cf. Lang, Last Years, 148-49. 32. Hatt-t Hum@yin, 224 (21 Shawwal 1163).

33. Butkov III, 96-97, 112, 128.

34. Ibid., 337. part ii, 153.

35. Bakikhanov, 161; Butkov III, 89-90; MAE Perse VII, No. 81; Peyssonnel

36. Brosset, 173, 218; Butkov III, 91, 101-2; Hatt-i Him@yfin, 225b; cf. Lang, Last Years, 150-52, 155. 37. Hatt-t Hum@yiin, 94a, b (1189), 170 (1183).

212 Iran under Karim Khan five hundred under General Todtleben. He abandoned Erekle to engage on his own, and defeat, a larger Turkish force at Aspindza in 1770 and was soon recalled. In 1773, a third Georgian embassy to Saint Petersburg, petitioning for Russian suze-

rainty and a resident Russian garrison, was politely but firmly refused. > Only

a: 4 . 39

in 1783 did Russia, alerted to the growing power of Agha Mohammad Khan, at last

consent, by the Treaty of Georgievsk, to assume military and political responsi-

bility for Georgia's survival.

13.4 TRANSARAXIA AND THE VAKIL

Karim Khan, however, did not entirely abdicate responsibility for this buffer region. On two occasions, oppressed Transaraxian groups petitioned him to intervene on their behalf. About 1761 the citizens of Old Shamakhi requested him to confirm their candidate Mohammad Sa'id in the khanate, to which he acceded; thus encouraged, the citizens of New Shamakhi ejected the unpopular Hajji Mohammad ‘Ali, an appointee of Nader, and invited Mohammad Sa'id to govern them as wel1.79 In 1768

the peasants (ra'tyat) and tribesmen (iZat) of the Nakhchevan khanate petitioned the Vakil to prohibit the Bigzada tribe from enslaving them.*? By 1768 the Vakil had vainly reproached Hosayn 'Ali Khan for submitting to Erekle's exactions“ and was soon after informed of the Russian military presence in Imeretia and Kartli-

Kakheti. To anticipate his reaction, the College of Foreign Affairs at Saint Petersburg in 1770 instructed Bogolyubov, their consul at Rasht, to write friendly letters to the Vakil, to Fath 'Ali Khan Darbandi, and to other Iranian leaders, assuring them that the Russian support for Erekle and Solomon was a temporary meassure to counter Turkish aggression and that the empress had no designs on Iranian

territory.*° It is not known whether Karim Khan received this circular; but in any case, he wrote to Erekle in the same year, in response to complaints from the pasha of Qars, instructing the Vali-ye Gorjestan to refrain from border raiding and to dismiss his Russian auxiliaries. Erekle in reply justified his battles with the Ottomans as retaliation and his alliance with the Russians as both an expedient response to force majeure and advantageous for Iran, in that he had recovered former Iranian territories from the Ottomans. For all his diplomatic deference, he gave no undertaking to comply with the Vakil's injunctions, nor did he “4 Karim Khan,faced with a Qajar rebellion and at war with Oman, was in no

position to insist. 38. Tsintsadze, 134; Butkov III, 116, 119, 126-27; cf&. Lang, Last Years, 164,

168-69, 170, 172-75.

39. Brosset, 249-50; Lang, Last Years, 178. 40. Dorn, 417-18; Butkov I, 248; cf. Bakikhanov, 159. 41. Nikitine, Les Kurdes, 125. The Bigzada inhabited the Urmiya region; see Karimi, Joghraftya, 150. 42. Tsintsadze, 140 (No. 5).

43. Ibid., 134-39. For the status of the Russian consul, see below, 15.2. 44. Ibid., 140-42 (No. 6), 142-44 (No. 7); cf. Hatt-t Humayin, 174 (also

published by M. R. Ragavi in Bar-rastha-ye Tarikhi X, No. 1, 184); Butkov I, 289; MT, 341; Lang, Last Years, 171.

Government, Land, and People 213 It is worth noting here that Erekle reportedly sent an equally deferential protestation of friendship and subservience to the Ottoman sultan in 1774, in response to the circulars and presents dispatched by the Porte to all the Azerbaijan and Transaraxian rulers in a bid to assure their support, or at least neutrality, in the clash with the Zands in Kurdistan (12.4). The Armenian nationalist, Joseph Emin, recounts how Erekle contemptuously rejected an embassy sent by the Vakil to demand the lapsed tribute of maidens and youths .“> Georgians continued to serve with Iranian armies; both ‘Adel Shah in 1748 and 'Ali Morad Khan in 1784 had a considerable corps, and Karim Khan's master of ordnance (tupeht-bashi) was a Georgian. *° However, Sohrab Khan seems to have been the last Georgian court offi-

Cial to play an active political role (Prologue). Georgians likewise served in Russia, both as individual officers and, from 1768, in a Georgian Hussar regimert.’ Two other means of influencing his recalcitrant vassals, by marriage alliarce and by political intrigue, eluded the Vakil. A proposal of marriage between Karim Khan's eldest son, Abu'1-Fath, was apparently accepted by Fath 'Ali Khan Darbanci, but never implemented .*® In 1767 Alexander, a pretender to the Georgian throne, fled from Erekle and was given asylum in Shiraz; soon after the Darband episode, the Vakil even sent presents to the Usmi of the Qaraqaytaq, urging him to invade Georgia and place Alexander on the throne. The Usmi, fully occupied against a coalition of Fath 'Ali Khan and the Shamkhal, was no more prepared than the Vakil for such a campaign, and the pretender stayed in Shiraz until after Karim Khan's death. 4°

Nor were the Transaraxian rulers blind to the possibilities of dynastic intrigue. During both the interregna in Iran, in 1752 and in 1780, Erekle gave refuge and support to a pretender to the Iranian throne. Fath 'Ali Khan tried the same ploy in 1784; neither met with success. Coins can often be called to witness the political affiliation of disputed regions; but in this case they prove to be as two-faced as Erekle's letters. S‘1ver coins were struck in the name of Esma'il III, or with the Zand-style inscription ya Karim, at Shamakhi, Nakhchevan, Ganja, and Tiflis, between 1178/1764 and 1190/1776--and at Tiflis, for good measure, up to 1213/1798-99, twenty years after Karim Khan's death! More enlightening is the copper series minted at Tiflis during the same period (1179-1210/1765-95), bearing Christian, Georgian, and even Russian iconography--notably the double-headed imperial eagle. There is little doubt that the complimentary reference to Karim was calculated to make the silver 45. See Malcolm, 213 note; Kishmishev, 235-36. 46. Butkov I, 234-35; Ferriéres de Sauveboeuf, 218, Niebuhr, Reise, 103, 118.

47. Butkov III, 108, 111.

48. Bakikhanov, 159, 160. 49. GM, 163-64; ANP, B1.175, 16 May 1771; Brosset, 238; Butkov III, 108, 143; cf. Lang, Last Years, 158, 178-79; Perry, correspondence in Bar-rastha-ye Tarikhi XI, No. 1, 243.

179 50. Peyssonnel part ii, 153; Butkov III, 153, 154, 180; cf. Lang, Last Years,

214 Iran under Karim Khan coins acceptable for trade throughout Iran, whereas the copper coins--struck for local use only--reflected Erekle's orientation toward Russia.”When the Vakil arrived on the banks of the Aras in 1763, with Azerbaijan conquered and every prospect of local support if he marched into Qarabagh, Fath 'Ali Khan Darbani bought him off with the promise of a marriage alliance and Erekle with the delivery of Azad Khan (5.7). Neither of these rulers, however, was required to pay homage in person, or to give hostages, and there is no record of their having paid an annual tribute. On Karim Khan's withdrawal to deal with the revolt of his cousin Zaki, they were left to consolidate their hard-won empires independent-

ly, as the Vakil had still to consolidate his. 13.5 THEORY OF CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

The remaining frontier regions comprise the domains of the valis of Ardalan, Luristan, and 'Arabestan, whose vicissitudes under Karim's rule have been described above (12.1, 7.2, 6.7). The next area in which the Safavid conceptual heritage

clashes with the exigencies of historical fact is that of the nature of Karim's political authority. The status of the Safavid shah as he was revived on different occasions after the Afghan conquest is in many ways analogous to that of the later ‘Abbasid caliph under the Iranian and Turkish dynasts of the tenth to the twelfth century. As the Safavid state had evolved from a confederation of frontier warrior clans to a more centralized, urbanized bureaucracy, so its head became less the charismatic Sufi ptr and descendant of the imams and more the conventional sultan. The religious basis of his authority had itself promoted the rise of the mojtaheds as interpreters of the divine law. Thus the shah became purely a political despot, supreme in his divine right of rule when personally powerful but with little in the way of his former spiritual aura (khwarena, farr) to prolong his symbolic status much beyond his coronation. Nor could the finely wrought fabric of Safavid institutions

surrounding this figure retain its full pristine pattern: it had been rudely rent by invasion, halfheartedly patched up again, and was by Karim Khan's time a faded

remnant of its former self. Yet in the initial absence of any other basis for government, it had of necessity to stand service once more to furnish the rebuilt halls of the Great Sophy .>7

Such was the abstract prestige of the Safavid shah as a rallying point against the descendants of Nader that 'Ali Mardan, Mohammad Hasan, and Karim Khan

thought it expedient to create and carry round with them on campaign the nonentity Esma‘'il III, as a talisman to canvass support and legitimize their power, just as

51. Poole, 105 ff.; Rabino, "Coins of the Shahs of Persia," 179, 190-92;

Lang, Nwnismatie History, 110-15; cf. Perry, correspondence in Bar-rastha-ye Tartkht XI, No. 1, 243-44. 52. Some aspects of the Safavid concept of kingship and statehood are discussed by Minorsky, TM, 12-14; Lambton, ‘Quis custodiet custodes," 142-43; Savory, "The Safavid State and Polity,'' 179-81; Perry, 'The Last Safavids,"' 59-60.

Government, Land, and People 215 Nader on his deposition of Tahmasb had at first found it expedient to invest the infant ‘Abbas t11.>° Their personal respect for their sovereign was nonexistent; they cared nothing for whether he was really of royal blood, nor for his repeated protests that he never wished to be shah >" Both warlords and populace were subconsciously aware that thirty years of occupation, anarchy, and misrule had in effect abolished the monarchy along with its justice and the territory and security of the mamatek-e mahrusa.?” It might indeed be more accurate to see this puppet show as a case of atavistic inertia rather than an appeal to a living symbol. Whatever the position, Karim Khan was content once he returned to Fars in 1764 to shut the shah in the fortress of Abada with adequate provisions, an allowance of One tuman per day, and a present at Nawruz from the Vakil, who signed himself the "meanest of his servants" (kamtarin-e bandagan). Here the captive king passed his time in painting and making knives, until he died in 1187/1773, all but unnoticed? The title borne by Karim Khan is especially significant. Vakil (deputy, at-

torney), without further specification, had been the title of the chief officer of state prior to the reign of Shah 'Abbas. Vakzl ol-dawla, the rank adopted by ‘Ali Mardan on the formation of the Isfahan triumvirate, had been that conferred upon Fath ‘Ali Khan Qajar by Tahmasb and assumed by Nader, together with its near-

Synonym na'eb ol-saltana, on his investiture of ‘Abbas III: it implied the high command of the shah's army and political-military dictatorship on his behalf, >” in like manner as the amir ol-omara' of tenth- and eleventh-century Baghdad. Karin inherited this title with his elimination of 'Ali Mardan, but soon after establishing himself at Shiraz--in 1179/1765, according to Reza Qoli Khan--he changed

1t to vakil ol-ra'aya (or vakil ol-khala'eq) and insisted on this appellation to the end of his days. "If anyone addressed him by the title of shah," wrote 'Abd ol-Razzaq Beg, "he would immediately reprove him, saying in all humility that the Shah was in Abada and he was merely his steward [kadkhoda].""°®

The title vakil ol-ra'aya is attested during the Safavid, Zand, and Qajar periods as a provincial administrative post, apparently a peasants' and artisans’ ombudsman acknowledged by the local kalantars and kadkhodas and appointed directly

93. See Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 62-63. 24, Rostam, 283-84; MAE Perse VIII, No. 5; Olivier VI, 124.

55. Ferriéres de Sauveboeuf (234), referring both to the earlier interregnum (1747 on) and that of his own time (1785), writes with eloquent despair of". .. cette anarchie qui abolit en Perse l'autorité Monarchique, § désole depuis plus de cinquante ans, ce pays divisé en tant de Gouvernements qu'il y a de villes, § n'offre plus 4 leurs habitants que la perspective de se voir assiégés successivement par tous les chefs de partis qui se détruisent sans cesse pour parvenir 4 la souveraineté."'

S56. Donboli, fajreba II, 31; Rostam, 338; Partaw-Bayza'i, 61; Fasa'i I, 219. 27. Minorsky, T, 114-15; Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 16, 63; Savory, ''Some

Notes ,"' 114.

58. RSN IX, 80-82; Kuhmarra'ti, 460; Donboli, fajreba II, 31 ("ma mardi

hastim kadkhoday"; cf. I, 131). Esfahani (2a) gives the form vakil ol-ra“iyat; the Persian form with egafa is also common (vakil-e ra“iyat, vakil-e ra“aya).

216 Iran under Karim Khan by the crown, rather than the provincial governor.>” He was thus a representative of the people rather than a delegate of the government. His duties were to represent the ra'aya--those subjects who had no patron in high places--when they brought accusations of oppression or exploitation by landlords and state officials (14.3).

By substituting the title of a local people's advocate for that of the de facto sovereign, Karim Khan declared that he wished to be regarded not as a delegated

despot but as the guardian of social justice. It would be an exaggeration to interpret this replacement of dawla by ra'aya as indicating a formal deposition of Esma‘'il III and Karim's becoming a cromwel-

lian "Lord Protector," or a 'withering-away of the state" as the result of a "dictatorship of the proletariat"; yet the subtle shift in terminology is not without Significance. Karim had to dispense with the personal divine right of the Safavid monarch, theoretically vested in his puppet king, and was not prepared to risk the opprobrium that would follow if he usurped the throne as Nader had. That despot had ridden the momentum of the Safavid theory of absolute rule by sheer force of personality and arms and had collapsed spectacularly when the warping of his personality turned his arms against him. Karim's political acumen as much as his milder nature caused him to respect the popular view of Safavid rule as a golden age and usurpers like the Afsharids as unmitigated tyrants. Thus, he presented himself as an intermediary between the people and a purely symbolic monarchy. Such a theory of government cuts no ice unless consistently evidenced in practice. Anecdotes of the Vakil's tolerance, humility, sense of humor, and justice are abundant enough (16.5), whether apocryphal or not, to support the view aptly summarized by Horn: ''He was not, as it were, a dervish-king who had renounced the world for an insight into better things; for such a philosophical attitude the man was too simple and uncultured. But he did seem more like a patriar-

chal paterfamilias than the ruler of a great kingdom," This echoes Donboli's repeated observation that Karim was both in theory and by nature a large-scale kadkhoda rather than a king. Though evident enough with the help of hindsight, this was not readily appreciated at the time by either Iranians or foreigners who were used to a succession of tyrannical usurpers. ‘The Carmelite bishop of Isfahan could still write of Karim at the end of 1764: '"Up to now he has not been able to

assume the title of 'king.'"' In the same year, the Russian consul at Rasht reported that Karim Khan, having conquered "the fairest provinces and cities of all 59. C£. the farman of “Ali Morad Khan published by M. Moshiri in Bar-rasihaye Tartkhi VIII, No. 3, 192, appointing one Aqa Mohammad Mahdi to the vekalat-e

racaya of Qom. This interpretation of the post is further supported by the fact that the first provincial deputy to take his seat in the first Majles in October

1906 was the vakil ol-racaya of Hamadan (Browne, The Persian Revolution (Cambridge, 1910],131); and by Mirza Saleh Shirazi's translation of House of Commons, which he

visited in London in the 1830s, as khana-ye vakil-e ra°aya (as opposed to khana-ye

khavanin, the House of Lords (Safarnama, ed. Esma°il Ra'in [Tehran, 1347] 17-18, 323).

60. Horn, 593 ("'. . . Aber er schien mehr ein patriarchalischer Familienvater als der Gebieter eines grossen Reiches."')

Government, Land, and People 217 Persia, nevertheless has not dared claim the crown . .. thereby winning the people's love 1° That he kept their love to the end was at least partly due to his continued rejection of royal rank. This modesty set a precedent even his bloodthirsty successors felt bound to follow. In fact, they were twice removed from royalty, since they nominally supported one or other of Karim's sons as titular head of state--the title being presumably vaktl but not explicitly so stated. None of the Zand rulers from Zaki Khan to Lotf 'Ali claimed any title loftier than that of khan. One further illustration of the way in which Karim Khan managed to blend the fact of his kingship and the fiction of his regency is afforded by the roba't chased in gold on the blade of his sword: ©? tn ttgh ke shir-e falakash nakhchtr-ast shamshtr-e vakil Gn shah-e keshvargtr-ast payvasta kelid-e fath darad dar dast an dast ke bar qabga-ye in shamshir-ast "This blade, that takes the lion of the Zodiac for prey Is the sword of the vakil, that conquering king. The key of victory is ever in that hand Which holds the haft of this sword." The exigencies of the meter will not permit an ezafa between vakzl and an shah in the second hemistich to give, as we might expect, vaktl-e an shah-e keshvargir, "the viceroy of that conquering king.'' The nouns can only be read in apposition, "the Vakil, that conquering king."’ The political post has become a personal honorific, and the poetical metaphor expresses the political reality. 13.6 CENTRAL GOVERNMENT IN PRACTICE

For all the image he projected of a benevolent shaykh, Karim Khan kept the cen-

tral political control firmly in his own hands. The traditional nomenclature of the Safavid court offices and protocol occurs here and there in the chronicles, but there is nothing to indicate that the resident court emirs (the gurcht-basht, qullar-aqast, eshik-aqast bashi, and tufangcht-aqast) together with the chief minister (e'temad ol-dawla, sadr-e a'zam) formed the "close council of state" of late Safavid times .°° No government minister rose to special prominence under Karim: military campaigns and government were delegated on an ad hoc basis to his kinsmen and trusted tribal leaders as sardar, and provinces when pacified were entrusted to local administrators, each responsible to him personally (16.3). Any titles conferred upon Zand princes (such as e'tezad ol-dawla and estezhar 61. Carmelites, 664; Arunova and Ashrafyan, "Novye Materialy," 111 (italics

mine).

62. Cf. Perry, "The Last Safavids,"' 66-69. The Vakil's sword is preserved in the Pars Museum at Shiraz. Cf. also Rostam's verse (333): "zehi marzban-e Karim-e jalil / ke shah bud o gofta vakil-am vakil." This also indicates that the term vaktl was perhaps still generally interpreted in the sense of vakil ol-dawla, despite Karim Khan's efforts to reverse the polarity of the title. 63. Cf£. IM, 101-4; Lockhart, Safavt Dynasty, 13.

218 Iran under Karim Khan ol-daila, both apparently applied to Sadeq Khan)" would appear to be personal honorifics rather than government posts. Karim's immediate subordinate in the civil administration was the vazir-e divan. His first such, Mirza 'Aqil, was executed at Isfahan in 1177/1763 (6.3) and replaced by Mirza (Mohammad) Ja'far Esfahani. Of almost equal rank was the mostawft ol-mamalek, a post filled successively by Mirza Mohammad Borujerdi and Mirza Mohammad Hosayn Farahani. These, respectively the senior administrative and

senior fiscal posts, were at this period little more than secretarial: the Vakil kept their incumbents as rubber stamps and companions of his leisure hours rather than colleagues in government .°> In the relatively small size and circumscribed power of his bureaucracy he followed Nader's precedent and anticipated Agha Mohammad Khan.°° His constant and trusted lieutenant was his brother Sadeq, who acted as governor general of Fars while the Vakil campaigned in the north. As may readily be seen from the reduced territorial extent of the Vakil's Iran, the number of provinces governed by a state-appointed governor general (beglerbegt) was eight, as against some twelve to fifteen under the later Safavids and Nader Shah .°7 Added to these were three out of the four hereditary valis (of Ardalan, Luristan, and 'Arabestan) and the governors (hakem) of major cities that were not provincial capitals, such as Kermanshah, Isfahan, Kashan, Yazd, Bushire, and Bandar 'Abbas. All these were in theory appointed, or at least confirmed, by the central government, and their military and financial contributions had to be secured, sometimes at long range.

As in the case of the frontier and tribal khans, the taking of hostages-chiefly relatives who volunteered as such--was the primary means of securing these

ties °° Prominent ''suests" at Shiraz included both the father and the son of Najaf Qoli Khan, beglerbegi of Azerbaijan; nephews of Hosayn 'Ali Khan, beglerbegi of Erivan; Haydar Khan Bakhtyari; the family of Zu'l-Feqar Afshar, governor of the Khamsa; the son and uncle of Hosayn Qoli Khan Qoyunlu Qajar, governor of Damghan; Mir Mohanna and/or Mir Hosayn of Bandar Rig; the son of Shaykh ‘Abdollah of the Banu Matin, governor of Hormuz Island; the sons of Nasir Khan, beglerbegi of Lar; and representatives of the ruling families of Bushire, Behbahan, and the major

tribes (14.1). The Vakil's hostage-guests enjoyed rank, property, and income commensurate

with their status, and all without exception speak well of their treatment at his court °° In fact, they were never demonstrably hostages, in that none suffered retaliation for the misconduct of a relative in office. At the height of Hosayn 64. Cf. TGG, 145, 183. 65. Cf. Rostam, 436; Donboli, fajreba I, 131; GM, 3, 124-25, 179; TGG, 210. For biographical information, see Azar, under sho“ara-ye mo°ager; Bahar III, 333. 66. Waring, 93; Meredith, 63. 67. C£. TM, 100-104, 113. 68. Cf. Rostam, 334; Arunova and Ashrafyan, "Novye Materialy,"' 111. 69. Rostam, 334, 338, 361; Donboli, Tajreba, II, 43; Ehteshdm ol-Molk, 132.

Goverrment, Land, and People 219 Qoli Khan's rebellion, Agha Mohammad Khan took refuge (bast) in the Shah Cheragh shrine at Shiraz, but Karim reassured him that whatever happened, he would not be the subject of a reprisal. /° Both Agha Mohammad and Fath 'Ali Shah not only sur-

vived their term at Shiraz but completed Hosayn Qoli's task of mobilizing Qajar power to replace the Zand dispensation, as the Vakil (according to Rostam) admitted on this occasion that he fully expected. Marriage alliances were by preference a reinforcement, sometimes a substitute, for the hostage system. The Vakil himself took to wife Khadija Bigom, Agha Mohammad's aunt, and 'Ali Morad took Mohammd Hasan Khan's daughter, Bibi Shahjahan

(9.1). His eldest son, Abu'l-Fath, was otherwise the chief instrument in this policy, being married to sisters of Najaf Qoli Khan Donboli and of Hedayatollah Khan of Rasht and promised inconclusively to Fatema Khanom, the sister of Fath ‘Ali Khan Darbandi. Other Zand khans occasionally made influential matches (Bestam Khan married a daughter of 'Ali Naqi Beg of Jupar, 8.5), but two such attempts were notable failures: ‘Ali Mohammad Khan during his 1773 campaign in Mazandaran married a captured sister of Hosayn Qoli Khan, who refused to acquiesce and was restored to her family by the outraged Vakil (9.4); and Zaki Khan's proposal to marry the daughter of the shaykh of Hormuz led only to the collapse of his expedi-

tion and the release of the shaykh's son as hostage (10.6). Use of intrigue, assassination, divide et impera, and other forms of subverSion by the Vakil are not attested, but should not be entirely discounted. His massacre of the Afghans (5.1) shows that he was not in practice opposed to deceit and bloodshed in furtherance of his policies. It has been suggested above (6.4) that many of the executions and other punishments of Zand princes and their protégés, both at court and in the provinces, during the period of Zaki Khan's rebellion, may have been intended in part as a domestic administrative purge. The murder of Nasir Khan Lari after his release from Shiraz and reappointment (7.9) apparently went unpunished; in view of the known hatred of Masih Khan for his predecessor, this suggests that the Vakil passively condoned if not subtly encouraged this elimination of an old enemy. However, the surrender of the vali of Khuzestan to his blood-enemies of the Al Kathir (6.7) would appear to have been merely one of the egregious blunders into which Zaki Khan was prone to.be trapped. The Qoyunlu and Develu clans of the Qajars clearly needed no encouragement in their vicious feud, and Karim Khan's favoring the Develu to counterbalance his Qoyunlu foes was unremarkable. He did not further exploit this split, however, and seems genuinely to have sought a reconciliation or at least a balance of power by appointing Hosayn Qoli Khan Qoyunlu to govern Damghan. Having realized his

mistake, he was still wwilling or unable to assist the Develu sufficiently to regain control of the Qajar provinces. In light of this, it is possible that the murder of Hosayn Qoli Khan (9.6)--as one source indeed claims--was encompassed in-

directly by bribes or threats from Shiraz. 70. Rostam, 353-54, 359; MN, 314.

220 Iran under Karim Khan On balance, it would seem that the Vakil's unwillingness to campaign too far afield and his relative neglect of exemplary punishment and intrigue encouraged rebellions and less overt acts of insubordination, such as the murder of the na'eb of Lahijan (13.2). But this is to judge him by Nader Shah's standards of discipline; and these--considering the greater number and gravity of the revolts against Nader--were hardly more effective. It will be shown in the next chapter that Karim Khan had gentler and arguably superior methods of acquiring and maintaining loyalty, manpower, and revenue. 13.7 RELIGIOUS POLICY

As chief executive of a nominally neo-Safavid (yet in practice kingless) monarchy, Karim Khan might have been expected to court the sanction of the ulema for his anomalous position. This he refused to do. The gulf that separated the Safavid shah from his subjects had been widened

by vicarious religious tyranny as much as political. In the stratified urban soCiety that had virtually replaced the old tribal coalition by the time of Soltan Hosayn, the ulema had provided religious sanction of the ruler's position as the viceroy of God and the imams and interpreted the shari'a accordingly. /4 Their power had been seriously weakened by Nader in his attempts to convert Iran to a form of the Sunna and by his widespread resumption of vaqf property to pay for his army. /2 In the chaos following his death a large number of ulema emigrated to the shrines of Traq;/° so that those who remained or returned in Karim's days found their authority diminished and their sanction unwanted by a new tribal leader whose own religion was perfunctory at best. He upheld the Shi'a in a conventional way, by coining in the name of the hidden imam (Saheb o1-Zaman) ,’* building mosques

and shrines (16.2), and presumably attending public prayer--though this, interestingly, is nowhere referred to. One of the more pious of our chroniclers avers that the Vakil never performed his prayers during the whole of his life.’ The major religious official at Shiraz was the state-appointed shaykh oleslam. His duties were apparently more limited than those of his Safavid forebears, and the designation molla-bashi, introduced by Shah Soltan Hosayn, was not revived. /° Religious officials traditionally appointed by the crown received diplomas and fixed stipends from the Vakil: such were the motavalli of the shrine of Shah ‘Abd o1-'Azim at Rayy in 1179/1765 and the superintendent of religious 70. Rostam, 353-54, 359; MN, 314. 71. Cf. Lambton, "Quis custodiet custodes,*' 125-33; Algar, 40-41. 72. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 232-33, 271.

73. Algar, 30, 33. 74, Poole, xx.

75. Qazvini, 143a. 76. Rostam, 309; Francklin, 131, 183; TM, 110; cf. Algar, 32, 48-49. Vehbi's use of the term molla-basht for Karim Khan's shaykh ol-eslam (qastda-ye tannana,

p. 14, line 18) is evidently derisive.

Goverrment, Land, and People 221 affairs (nazer-e shar'tyat) at Qazvin, // but the lesser akhunds and students of theology, along with 'alavi sayyeds and dervishes who expected to live on state pensions, were disappointed. The Vakil is said to have regarded them as parasites and declared that his regulation of prices enabled them, like everyone else, to live perfectly well on what they had. ’8 It has been implied by Browne, Algar, and others ,’° perhaps unwittingly, that Karim Khan presided over a wave of persecution of Sufi dervishes by the ulema, which indeed was a recurrent phenomenon throughout the greater Safavid period. A

closer look at the instances cited shows that, with the exception of the expulsion of Ma'sum 'Ali Shah and Nur ‘Ali Shah, °9 none occurred during the Vakil's reign,

or in Shiraz. Sufis who had fled the excesses of the later Safavid period for the hospitality of the Deccan had been returning during the interregnum, just as the ulema were coming back from Iraq, and the two could be expected to clash. The most prominent order was the Ne'mat-ollahiya, whose future saint (gotb), Ma'sum ‘Ali Shah Dakani, arrived at Shiraz during the last three years of Karim's reign and sent out misSionaries all over Iran. One such, Nur 'Ali Shah, had his long locks shaved off by the ulema, and an ear cut off at Murcha khurt during the time of "Ali Morad Khan. °4 Moshtaqg 'Ali Shah, sent to Kerman, was stoned to death by a mob led by the mojtaheds and the emam-jom'a during Ramadan 1206/1792, a few days

before the arrival of Lotf 'Ali Khan Zand, in flight from the Qajars; both the governor, Abu'l-Hasan Khan Mahallati, and the kalantar are said to have been absent on that day .°4 Ma'sum 'Ali himself was hounded from Shiraz and Isfahan in turn, then killed in Kermanshah in the year 1212/1798, under Fath 'Ali Shah, by the mojtahed Aqa Mohammad 'Ali. The latter was known as Suft-kosh, ''the SufiSlayer," from the number of dervishes he condemned to death.*° Despite such fierce opposition, the Ne'mat-ollahiya and other orders flour-

ished during the early Qajar period. Though this revival can be said to date roughly from the time of Karim Khan, there is no evidence that he actively either encouraged or opposed their activities. Likewise, though his discouraging attitude to the ulema may have played some part in their fanatical persecution of Sufis, this was not widespread until a later generation and may be seen rather as a violent assertion of civic responsibility by provincial ulema and their urban 77. See, respectively, Mohammad “Ali Hedayati, 107-9; Eshragi in Bar-rasthaye Tartkht, VII, No. 4, 105-6. 78. Rostam, 309. 79. Browne, Htstory of Perstan Literature, 368; UNESCO, Iranshahr I, 612;

ee chirvani. Reyag ol-Seyaha (1339), 656; cf. Gramlich, 34. 81. Malcolm, 417-20; Bastani-Padrizi, 205; Razi, 542. For this order, see Gramlich, 28 ff., esp. 30-34. 82. Vaziri, 348-50; Bastani-Padrizi, 206-11, 217. 83. Razi, 542; UNESCO, Irdnshahr I, 612; Browne, History of Perstan Literature, 368.

222 Iran under Karim Khan allies in reaction to the collapse of central government. Karim Khan's treatment of Christian and Jewish minorities is linked with questions of foreign relations and commercial policy, since these were either resident aliens (Christian missionaries) or native Armenians and Jews whose status as protected peoples tended to be viewed in the light of their economic productive ness. Suffice it here to note in the case of the former class that both Karim Khan in 1177/1764 and 'Ali Morad in 1195/1781 issued farmans in response to a pe-

tition on behalf of the "French Padrés," the Carmelites, Benedictines, Jesuits, Capuchins, Augustinians, and other orders still residing in various provinces of Iran, guaranteeing them freedom of residence, worship, and trade, as under the Safavids, and protection from molestation by the Armenian Christians, on condition that their behavior did not offend against the Shi'a and its adherents .°4 From this it might be conjectured that, if relations between Christians and Muslims were not always perfect, they were probably no worse than those between native and foreign (or Latin and Armenian) Christians, and were at least not exacerbated by a zealous government.

Perhaps as a result of the more liberal religious atmosphere, productions of ta'atya or tashbih--the popular "passion-play" reenacting the martyrdom of Hosayn --became fashionable from the Vakil's reign on. °° Bahar is probably correct in his view that the absence of pietistic fanaticism at Karim Khan's court contributed to Iran's recovery--spiritual and intellectual as well as economic--from the ravages of the previous half century. °° 84. Published by Qa'temmaqami, Yaksad o panjah sanad-e tartkhi, 103 ff., and M. Mofkham in Bar-rastha-ye Tarikhi, II, No. 3-4, 361-62.

85. Naraqi, 107. 86. Sabkshenasi, 318 ("ahl-e fazl o zawq dar mahd-e azadi-ye afkar va esterahat o estekhlas az changalha-ye akhundha-ye mota°asseb . . . aramida budand").

14 Administration, Revenue, and Society

14.1 THE TRIBES

If Karim Khan ran his small but spirited empire on such a light rein, factors other than the traditional sanctions or an easygoing and liberal nature must be adduced to explain his success. In the present chapter I will attempt to usher into order a collection of details relating to the various classes of Iranian society, avoiding where possible both generalizations that are not specific to the period of the Vakil's reign and instances that may be peculiar to the special metropolitan case of Shiraz (see chap. 16). It is my view that a social or economic history of this period (including the history of art and literature) should properly be subsumed within a study of the greater Safavid period as a whole (minimally defined as c. 1600-1800, or from Shah ‘Abbas to Fath 'Ali Shah); much of the next two chapters, therefore, should be regarded as a presentation of materi-

als that may help to signpost trends. In a land of traditionally mixed agriculture and pastoralism there are regular cycles of rise, preponderance, and collapse of each culture in turn, together with its political adjuncts. This is most clearly demonstrated in the case of Iran by the successive waves of nomadic invaders who attempted to destroy and replace the urban-based agricultural society by a mobile pastoral confederation, only to succumb in the second or third generation to the economic advantages of a settled urban society. Nader Shah's conquests may be regarded from this viewpoint as a modified form of nomadic invasion, which began within the framework of the late Safavid urban society that had been dislocated but not destroyed by the Afghan invasion, and in its turn merely decentralized and alienated the urban basis of government without replacing or renewing it.

The vulnerability of a centralized urban society without strong tribal support had been adequately demonstrated by the Ghalji conquest of Iran, and conversely the futility of a tribal army without a permanent urban base was shown on numerous occasions during the interregnum. Qom shut its gates on Ebrahim Shah (Prologue), Isfahan held out against the forces of 'Ali Mardan Khan (1.5), and Hashem Khan Bayat denied Karim Khan access to Shiraz, almost bringing about his downfall at the hands of Azad (3.3). But with an urban base and a tribal amy, 2a strong and popular ruler could secure the allegiance and even the trust of both

elements. His tribal troops could coerce other tribes, who if generously treated would often join loyally with their conqueror so long as there were fresh fields 223

224 Iran under Karim Khan to exploit; and the townsmen would benefit from the security provided by the army and, in the case of the capital, the traditional exemptions and property development commensurate with its status. Similar privileges would be expected and re-

ceived by the ruler's tribal army. The tribal basis of power was modified by a Safavid attempt, continued by Nader Shah and Karim Khan, at direct administration of the urban centers by stateappointed officials, rather than military assignments to tribal khans. Such beglerbegis, however, would normally have tribal or family roots in the area. They in turn were responsible for the obedience, welfare, and, if necessary, chastise-

ment of the tribes within their jurisdiction, as can be seen from the instructions regarding the Shaqaqi Kurds issued to Najaf Qoli Khan Donboli on his appointment as beglerbegi of Tabriz.“ Large and important tribes were ruled by their traditional chiefs as direct vassals of the state, without reference to any urban center. Such were the Bakhtyari, the Fayli Lurs, the Kurds of Ardalan, Afshars of Urmiya, and Qajars of Astarabad. In the last three cases the tribal head was also generally the governor of the pertinent region and its capital. Allegiance to the government was secured by the long-tested expedients of taking hostages, of supervising the succession by the issue of diplomas (usually renewed annually) to approved chiefs, and of punitive raids to enforce tribute, curtail marauding, or replace an insubordinate chieftain. In general, tribal appointees exhibit a personal and dynastic continuity independent of the vicissitudes of their suzerains. The Bakhtyari under Karim Khan (at least the settled landlord class) are an excellent example. Karim issued a raqam in the name of Esma'il III in Rajab 1164/June 1751, shortly after his debut as Vakil and repulse of 'Ali Mardan at Chahar Mahall and Nehavand: this empowered Abdal Khan, son and successor of Nader's appointee, 'Ali Saleh Beg, as head of the Haft Lang Bakhtyari with an annual salary of 700 tumans .> During Azad's occupation of Isfahan, in Ramadan 1167/June 1754, a decree (hokm) was issued confirming Abdal Khan in his position and (additionally?) as zabet (tax-farmer) for the Chahar Mahall, with the admonition to be kind and just to the peasants .* With the return of Karim Khan's administration, Abdal Khan twice petitioned (in 1173/1759 and 1194/1780) for recognition of title to disputed properties in the Chahar Mahall; this the Vakil and his successor granted, referring to the petitioner by the same term as in 1751 (Hakem of the Haft Lang Bakhtyari) and stipulating that future development of the properties was to be financed by Abdal Khan's own capital-which may be interpreted as denial of a subsidy or exemption.”

1. Cf. Kuznetsova, 308-10. For a general account of the tribes during this

period, see Tapper's chapter in Cambridge History of Iran VII (forthcoming). 2. Nader Mirza, 173-74; Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 133. 3, Bakhtydri, 151-52.

4. Garthwaite, No. II (p. 4). S. Ibid., Nos. III, IV (pp. 4-6).

Admintstratton, Revenue, and Soctety 225 The Vakil is also said to have appointed the first ¢tZkhan of the Qashqa'ti (Jani Aga from the noble Shahilu clan, who tradition says became a close associate and minister of Karim). This action, in effect organizing them from a motley collection of Turkish-speaking tribes to the relative cohesion they have since enjoyed, was doubtless designed primarily to help in the defense of Shiraz. An tlbegt of the same family was appointed to assist the ilkhan and ensure the delivery of taxes to the Vaki1.° One Jani Khan Qashqa'i is indeed referred to as a courtier at Shiraz, and blind Esma'il Khan--described as the head (sar) of the

Qashqa'i tribe--was a confidant of the Vakil. ’ The other tribes of Fars later to be confederated as the Khamsa were likewise closely controlled by the appointment of chiefs from loyal families.® The turbulent sedentary tribes of the Kuhgiluya were crushed in the campaign of 1178/1765 (7.4-6). Nomads of the same region were, at least on paper, better

treated by the state, though liable to extraordinary levies, corvées, and other Oppression from their settled neighbors in the name of government. The Sadat-e Mir Salari tribe of the Bahma'i district successfully petitioned both Karim Khan and Ja'far Khan (the latter in 1200/1785) for confirmation of the exemptions fron Such imposts granted them by Shah Soltan Hosayn.” The raw materials of Karim's original coalition--the Lur, Lak, and Hamadan plains tribes of the Zangana, Vand, Kalhor, Qaraguzlu--remained closely connected

with the Zand chief after his rise to power, providing more than half his standing army in Fars (16.3) while remaining loyal wardens of the Zand homeland and the marches of Kermanshah. Numbers of the Gorani and Ahmadavand Kurds from the region of Kermanshah, !? the Hodavand branch of the Mishmast Arabs from Khorramabad,/~ and some Zangana and Bayramvand’“ were brought to settle in the environs of Shiraz. Zohab was governed during the later Zand and early Qajar period by Mohammad Hosayn Khan Qaraguzlu, who built the Pol-e Zohab bridge over the river Alvand.?° The

city of Kermanshah was slow to recover from its earlier batterings during the Siege of Nader's fortress (2.5, 7.7) and, despite its continuing under Zangana governors (‘Abd ol-Baqi Khan under Nader Shahl4 and Allah Qoli Khan during the

later reign of the Vakil), was not redeveloped; it was to suffer yet again during the collapse of the Zands 1°

6. Garrod, 32 £f.; Ullens de Schooten, 86-87. Fasd'i (I, 267), however, in

recording the designation in 1234/1818-19 of one Jani Khan-e Qashqd'i, formerly

tlbegi of Fars, as tlkhani of (the tribes of) Fars, states that this was the first use of the title in Fars. 7. Rostam, 337, 343; Donboli, Tfajreba I, 134.

8. Christian, 5.

9. Semsar, 80-94. 10. Zaki, Kordestan, 231; Rabino, Kermanshah, 41. li. Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 142. 12. Mann, Mundarten, XX, XXIV.

13. Firuzian, 82. 14. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 97 and index. 15. Firuzian, 134, 136.

226 Iran under Karim Khan Further afield, and especially in the case of nomadic tribes, control was often purely nominal, the Vakil merely confirming a de facto chief and unwilling usually to undergo the inconvenience and expense of a show of force. The ultimate sanction for an insubordinate tribe was transportation, to which the Vakil rarely resorted. This was doubtless due partly to lack of opportunity, but it was more

likely because he saw the futility of this policy. The massive resettlement of tribes (and sedentary groups) by Shah 'Abbas and Nader Shah had been undertaken

not only as a sanction but in part to deny resources to Ottoman invaders in the northwest and to build up the defenses of northern and eastern Khorasan; Karim had no such frontiers and had moreover personally experienced the discomforts of exile and the satisfaction of returning in force. The only large-scale transportation he undertook was that of the Bakhtyari in 1763 (7.1). In contrast to this, the Bigirlu tribe, who returned during his reign from Kashan to Qom, were encouraged

to settle there and take possession of many of the ruined estates (amlak) to redevelop over the next few generations.1® 14.2 THE PROVINCES AND TOWNS BEFORE KARIM KHAN

The years from 1722 until 1764 had appeared to the people of the towns and villages of Iran a constant vicious circle of military occupations and extortion by

a series of freebooters, undertaken solely to raise funds and supplies for larger armies and greater extortion. Taxes were higher, and put to less use, than ever before; funds squeezed from one area were uSed to ravage another, or, ironically, even the same place if a scorched-earth policy was later indicated. Nader's reign while politically more stable than the Afghan occupation, was hardly less destructive: since his "Tyranny and Depredations . . . the whole Country had assumed a new face, for there was not above one House in ten but was deserted of Inhabitants, at least if we may judge of other Places by what appeared at Gombroon.""*7 Karim Khan had to remedy some forty years of artificial famine and depopulation, to which he himself had of necessity contributed during his years of struggle for power.

The economic burden imposed on the central provinces by the successive conquests of 'Ali Mardan, Azad, Karim, and Mohammad Hasan may be judged in part from the taxes, contributions, and indemnities in cash and kind levied on'each town as it fell. The cash total of such levies (chaps. 1-4) between 1750 and 1760 amounts to over 350,000 tumans; this represents only twelve instances (not including voluntary tribute) out of a total of some twenty occupations where such levies might

be expected and is thus approximately half of the possible total. A figure of 700,000 tumans would be equivalent to ten times the annual revenue of Isfahan

(table 1). 16. Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 141. For a comparison of the resettlement policies of these monarchs, see Perry, ‘Forced Migration."

17. Plaisted, 10.

Administration, Revenue, and Soctety 227 Other results were rural depopulation, disruption of trade, starvation, disease, and social and moral disintegration. Several examples have been cited incidentally in earlier chapters (e.g., 1.8, 4.5). During his campaign of 1755 in Gilan (3.8), Mohammad Hasan Khan imposed a levy equivalent to 150,000 rubles (ap-

proximately 8,000 tumans), requisitioned millet stores in Rasht, and plundered all

property in Qazvin; as a result, peasants fled to the forest, and trade at the port of Anzali came to a standsti11.)® People in Gilan and Mazandaran were still dying of hunger and disease in 1760, during the transfer of power in those regions from Qajar to Zand; from 1762 war, famine, and disease subsided, !” to reappear in the late 1770s, when the expectation of the Vakil's death and the resurgence of Qajar power brought a renewal of internecine strife among local leaders "craving riches who, enjoying totally unrestricted power, put to death, blind, confiscate goods .1"29 During the famine of 1757 (4.5), exacerbated by Qajar exactions, the people of Isfahan and Julfa sold their children to buy bread, hunted wild animals and their fellow humans, and picked cotton-seeds for their food. 74 Jungle law was reinforced by the conquerors, who delegated their extortions to those who best demonstrated their ability to fulfill the quota by any methods: governors, kalantars and kadkhodas tended to be replaced by bandits. The Gombroon diarist summarized this situation early in 1760: "This Kingdom seems to be hast'ning on very fast to its Destruction, the men in Power have little or no Consideration for the subject; they only think how to satisfy the Soldier and those who immediately serve them; the Consequences of which must be the Ruin of Trade."'27 Administration, revenue, and the social well-being of townspeople and peasantry were thus one and the same problem, as Iranian political theory has recog-

nized for centuries: the just ruler maintains himself and the state by means of the army, which in turn is maintained by regular revenue, which is derived through a prosperous economy from contented subjects, a goal which can only be secured by justice.*> Nader and his successors had short-circuited this process, using the army to extort its upkeep from the populace without reference to the economic and

ethical sources of political power. It was the Vakil's responsibility to repair the broken circle of justice. The chief traditional sources of state revenue available to the Zands may be divided into five statutory or reguiar taxes (collectively, maltyat) and five extraordinary or irregular supplements (‘avarea).”" The five regular taxes were:

18. Butkov I, 417.

19. Kukanova, 73. 20. Arunova and Ashrafyan, ''Novye Materialy,"' 111; cf. Markova, 106-7. 21. Hovhanyants, 290. 22. GD XII, 28 February 1760. 23. Cf. Ibnu'l-Balkhi, Farsndma, Gibb n.s. I (London, 1921), 5 (from Tha°A2lebi): 'la molk ella be'l-Caskar wa 14 Saskar e11a4 be'l-mal wa 1a mal ella be'1“emadra wa 14 Cemara e114 be'1-Cad1."'

24. I.e., maltyat, Savareg. The following list is compiled chiefly from:

Maicolm, 478-80; Waring, 85; Fraser, Warrative, 206-7, 213; Rostam, 325; H. Hedayati, Tartkh-e Zandiya, 95; Moshiri, 192-93.

228 Iran under Karim Khan (a} Rents from crown lands (khassa) and state lands (khaZesa), that is, those which during Safavid times had been concentrated in western and southern Iran (the Caspian provinces, Persian Iraq, Fars, and Kerman) and excluding Khora-

San; these were assessed at about 30 per cent of yield. In view of the effective absence of a shah, and the Vakil's scorn of a private fortune, it may be assumed that there was no longer'a distinction (if indeed there had been””) between crown and state revenue. (b) Land tax on private (arbabi) estates and religious endowments (vagqf, aigaf), ranging from 15 to 20 per cent and payable largely in produce.

(c) Property or poll taxes on tribes and religious minorities, assessed per family and payable in livestock or cash. (d} Customs dues, from 7 to 10 per cent of the value of imported goods, levied on wholesale merchants (sawdagar).

(e) Tribute (baj) from vassals, such as the valis, and presents (ptshkash) from chieftains, officials, governors, or other clients, given over and above any tax remittance on occasions such as Nawruz, state visits and progresses, weddings, and the like. Both kinds fluctuated in regularity and quantity, and shade into the second category, that of irregular and solicited or extorted revenue. The irregular supplements comprised:

(f) Extraordinary requisitions (mosadarat) levied ad hoc from particular individuals or communities--as a fine or indemity, or a contribution to local campaigns, and the like. (g) Provision of food and forage (‘'olufa or ab-o-‘'alafkhwar) for the army, which generally lived off the land whether in hostile or friendly territory. (h) Forced labor or corvée (galan, bigar), the provision of unpaid manpower for public works, fortifications, transport, and so forth. (i) Provision of beaters to drive game for the royal hunt (shekar). Shah ‘Abbas is said once to have used 1,000 peasants for this. (j) Forced sale and purchase (tarh): goods or produce could be acquired at less than the market price to the shah's agents, who would then force merchants and manufacturers to buy them at several times the market price. Nader Shah was able thus to equip and supply his enormous army at cut rates .“° Added to these sources were sundry road tolls, bazaar fees, purchase money for offices and other forms of bribe, and legalized windfalls: treasure trove, unclaimed legacies, and the property of fallen officials and captured rebels were generally claimed by the shah. It will readily be appreciated that the extraordinary imposts in particular, being routine during the interregnal anarchy, could be a great disincentive to agriculture, commerce, and urban development. ‘They were naturally less prevalent 25. See TM, 147. 26. Cf. Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo, 259.

Administration, Revenue, and Soctety 229 during a more settled dispensation, but this alone was insufficient to promote full recovery. Apart from strategic duties, such as the capture and protection of manufacturing centers and trade routes, a newly established state must demonstrate a positive policy of investment and subsidy;to promote economic growth. The metropolis--Isfahan and Mashhad during the immediate pre-Zand period--was, naturally, the most favored, and Karim Khan's Shiraz was to be no exception. The only universal subsidy ever attempted was a temporary remission of taxation, as declared by Nader Shah on his return with the plunder of Delhi and by ‘Adel Shah on his succession--both for three years; Nader rescinded this amnesty soon afterwards,

with predictable results, and 'Adel survived less than a third of the promised span.°! The Vakil never declared a general tax amnesty and only once remitted a year's revenue locally--in the case of Kerman, on evidence of severe hardship (8.5). Nor did he produce dramatic innovations or reforms; but his just and pragMatic interpretation of the existing system did assist Iran toward a considerable economic recovery. 14.3 ADMINISTRATION AND REVENUE UNDER KARIM KHAN

On his death Nader Shah left a hoard of fifteen crore in cash, each crore worth 500,000 silver tumans, according to one admittedly fanciful estimate. “° Karim Khan on his death left a mere 7,000 tumans in his treasury, and this had lain un spent only because of his illness .?” If we are to believe Rostam's figures (table 1), the Vakil's annual revenue was, allowing for inflation and territories lost, Still quite respectable in comparison with that of late Safavid times. His basis of assessment’ was Nader Shah's up-to-date registers (daftarha), which had been compiled from a painstaking cadastral survey undertaken over a period of seven years from about 1725. But whereas Nader extorted his tithe ruthlessly and hoarded his wealth uselessly, ultimately killing the golden goose, Karim Khan tock special conditions into account and regularly ploughed back revenue into his investment.

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232 Iran under Karim Khan transaction on pain of fine or dismissal. The Vakil is depicted as warning tax officials that for every dinar they took above the fixed rate he would mulct them of two, in addition to having them beaten. ~- That such annual audits were undertaken and did act as a check on peculation and extortion is confirmed on several occasions by Mirza Mohammad, the Kalantar of Fars. Even when the Vakil was campaigning from Tehran in 1760, Aga Fazlollah, the mostawfi of Shiraz, was sent to audit the accounts of the capital, at that time governed by Karim's brother Sadeq; the kalantar, who had complained to Karim of his rapacity, was pleased to find that Sadeq's demands on him and on the populace at large were considerably eased

after the visit of the mostawfi.~2 The salary of each official, moreover, was fixed on his appointment and recorded on his diploma (ragam) and periodically reviewed when his appointment was

confirmed. The provincial beglerbegi would normally be a local dignitary with a large private income to supplement his nominal pay. The governor (hakem) of a major town was paid a state salary of 100 tumans cash plus 400 kharvar (114 tons) of grain, and his subordinate officials on a sliding scale accordingly. Rostam ol-Hokama' gives an example in the case of Isfahan, where the Vakil on his return from Mazandaran in 1752 appointed Mirza 'Abd 01-Vahhab as governor, together with

seven subordinates. These are named as the vazir, mostawft, vakil ol-ra'aya, mohasses, kalantar, mohtaseb, and naqib.>>

An account of the structure of urban administration in late eighteenthcentury Iran is beyond the scope of this essay; the offices will here be briefly and tentatively defined on the basis of our knowledge of their functions under the later Safavids and early Qajars. The Tazkerat ol-Moluk defines fourteen civic functionaries ('ommal) of Isfahan, though using only nine terms (the offices of vazir and mostawfi are duplicated several times in different departments). The five senior fiscal officers who concern us correspond to terms used by Rostam. It must be remembered that Isfahan was then the capital, and we may assume that the corresponding offices under Karim Khan were relatively more important in Shiraz

and less so in Isfahan, and in some cases (see kalantar below) their range of functions was expanded or restricted accordingly. The vaztr was the manager of government estates and farms. He promoted agri-

culture by distribution of land, labor, and seed and maintenance of irrigation works, supervised the assessment and collection of revenue from crops, and arbitrated in disputes related to these matters .>* The vazir of Isfahan, with its large and fertile Safavid estates, may well have remained a more important official than his Shiraz counterpart even under the Zands. The mostawft (lit.: "trustee') was the chief fiscal executive, in charge of 31. Rostam, 308.

32. Kalantar, 57-58; Fasa'i I, 212. 33. Rostam, 307. 34. TM, 78-80, 146-47; DM, 319.

Administration, Revenue, and Soctety 223 all matters of revenue and expenditure; his department audited and remitted revenue collected according to the rates fixed in the daftar and assessed by the other

'onmal in their various capacities.” The Vakil's first state treasurer (mostawfz ol-mamalek) was Torab Khan, executed in 1177/1763 and replaced by Mirza Mohammad

Borujerdi, promoted from the post of fiscal registrar (mostawfi-ye daftarkhana; 6.3). The vakil ol-ra'aya has been discussed in general terms above (13.5). The office does not occur in the Zazkerat ol-Moluk, but according to the Dastur ol-

Moluk, the kalantar of Isfahan also acted as vakil-e ra'tiyat (sic). In this capacity, "he is responsible for submitting their [the subjects'] requests to the ruler or to others in authority, for eliminating any oppression, injustice, and exploitation suffered by the subjects [ra'’aya], and for carrying out the terms of the regulations issued by the guilds in connection with their trades and work.'*° Perhaps this workers' and peasants' ombudsman was originally attached to the kalantar's department, but became a distinct officer in the reign of his namesake Karim Khan. The vakil of Isfahan prior to the purge of 1177/1763 was Mirza Mohammad Ja'far ol-Hosayni, who was then appointed chief minister of state (vazir-e divan; 6.3). When Mirza Mo'izz ol-Din Ghaffari retired as the governor of Kashan, he

nevertheless remained in the post of vakil ol-ra'taya.”! For the term mohasses we must again refer to the Dastur ol-Moluk:

The mohasses-e mamlakat acts as clerk to the kalantar, and is appointed on his recommendation and with his approval. . . . He records in his register a copy of the annual assessment of tax liability [bonicha] of each guild once it has been sealed by the naqtb and certified by the

kalantar. On the basis of these he draws up a roll [tawjth-namcha] listing the official patents and the emoluments accorded each master and treasurer [qgabez] in each guild, and such other matters connected with

various special occasions as need official approval . .. this is then signed by the kalantar and is available to all concerned on request. The mohasses received an annual emolument of 15 tumans paid by the guilds.

The kalantar (mayor) had a variety of duties and functions. Essentially he was the representative of local group interests, as the hakem, vazir, and mostawfi were of the central government. He was responsible for the appointment and 35. TM, 78, 81, 84, 146. 36. DM, 422 ("va chun vakil-e ra°iyat ast . . . dar “ohda-ye moshar elayhe ast''). A similar passage appears in TM (77b-78a, 82), where it is said to be the kalantar's duty to act as advocate for peasants and artisans ("az janeb-e ra°iyat modda“i shoda'’) who bring accusations of oppression or exploitation. For a study of the antecedents, functions, and subsequent development of the office of vakil-e ra aya, see my "Justice for the Underprivileged." 37. GM, 119.

38. DM, 422, 551. The daftar-e .. . mohasseg-e kalantar 1s mentioned in a Similar passage in TM (77a-b) as a source for fixing the assessments of the guilds; Minorsky has, however, mistranslated it (p. 81, last seven lines).

234 Iran under Karim Khan dismissal of ward aldermen and guild elders (both termed kadkhoda}), the regulation of weights, measures, and prices, the redress of commercial grievances and overall supervision of the guilds (asnaf)}; as seen above, he determined the assessments of the guilds after consultation with the naqib and a committee of guild elders .°? His duties varied with the size and economic orientation of the town. Thus in Bushire he was head of the customs office--either equivalent to or in association with the government customs official (shahbandar).*° With the shift of the capital to Shiraz--where the office of the kalantar had already been amalgamated with that of saheb-ekhteyar under Nader (1.8)--the metropolitan kalantar (lord mayor) assumed additional functions, becoming mayor of the palace as well. He was in charge of arrangements and expenses for celebrations, such as the wedding of Abu'lFath Khan in 1180/1766, and of entertaining important visitors and envoys; in this capacity he was equivalent to the Safavid mehmandar-basht. Mirza Mohammad obviously considered his position as the frugal Vakil's general factotum more of a chore than an honor. = The mohtaseb was the market superintendent; he inspected weights, measures, and prices and supplied lists of current prices every month as agreed by each guild for the guidance of the heads of the other departments. He could also punish offenders against market regulations by imposing fines or the bastinado, or by clapping them in the takhta-kolah, a kind of yoke or walking pillory with a bell; the miscreant was then paraded around his quarter to the jeers of the pub-

lic.” His ‘other traditional duties as suppressor of public vices (gambling, drunkenness, prostitution, and other infringements of the Shari 'at) were now the province of the darugha or prefect of police, whose functions will be noted below (16.4).

The naqtb was superintendent of the artisans' guilds. He assessed their tax liability in consultation with the head of each (kadkhoda, rish-safid) and submitted his sealed record of this (twnar) to the kalantar's department for approval. He also registered the induction of master craftsmen, appointed the elders of fringe groups such as dervishes and street performers, and probably dealt with minor litigation and infringements of guild codes not serious enough for the qazi or darugha.**

Rostam's listing of the vakil ol-ra'aya and mohasses as officials in their own right rather than functions or functionaries of the kalantar's department may be symptomatic of the reduced status of Isfahan after a harrowing thirty years of mixed neglect and exploitation. The provincial kalantar was one bureaucrat among others, the city that had been "half the world' just another source of revenue. 39. See TM, 81, 148; DM, 421-22; Lambton, ''The Office of Kalantar," 207-16; Floor, exp. 255-61; Kuznetsova, 316. 40. Waring, 148. 41. Kalantar, 64-65; cf. DM, 427. 42. TM, 83, 149; DM, 418; Rostam, 308; Kuznetsova, 318. 43. TM, 83, 148-49; Kuznetsova, 314, 318.

Administration, Revenue, and Soctety 235 The Vakil's "appointment" of such officials meant not that he personally se-

lected them but that he asserted the ruler's traditional responsibility for just administration throughout his domains. It does seem, however, that he took this responsibility seriously. His example alone was sometimes enough: Hajji Aqa Mohammad Ranani, his second governor of Isfahan, is reputed to have traveled to Shiraz with only a mule and a donkey out of deference to the Vakil's scorn of ostentation.’ In Urmiya, some merchants who had been robbed by Kurdish bandits complained to the governor, Reza Qoli Khan. He reimbursed them in full, acknowledging his responsibility for a lapse in security, and later recovered their goods .*>

It would be too much to expect every provincial governor to forego the timehonored practices of peculation and extortion. Some, however, learned to their cost that such behavior would not be tolerated. It is said that a tradesman from whom the governor of Mazandaran had extorted the negligible sum of two 'abbasts took his complaint to Shiraz; the Vakil at once sent messengers to summon the governor to court, where he was dismissed from his post. The plaintiff meanwhile was lodged in the palace free of charge for six weeks, and on his returning to Mazandaran was given not only subsistence money but compensation for loss of income during his absence from home. For the sake of the two 'abbasis, these proceedings cost 250 tumans--which was taken from the dismissed governor.*° In 1758, when Taqi Khan Bafqi, governor of Yazd, was arrested by Zaki Khan (8.2), he was arraigned on the Vakil's arrival before his own victims and creditors, who claimed a total of 40,000 tumans from him. Taqi denied all liability,

but before a full court constituted according to the Shari 'at, witnesses testified to 15,000 tumans he had misappropriated. The Vakil duly fined and replaced hin, demonstrating throughout this affair a scrupulous and unprecedented adherence to

the letter of the law.77 The relative importance of the different sources of maliyat revenue would be difficult to assess. Both Nader Shah and Agha Mohammad, in line with their policy

of political centralization, expanded the royal and state lands at the expense of private estates ."® If we may risk a generalization from the evidence of Mirza Mohammad, who bought up dozens of villages in the metropolitan province of Fars

during his tenure of office and clearly identified himself with a powerful local landlord class,” Karim Khan in contrast encouraged the expansion of arbabz land. The leading Zand khans were of course major landowners: the estates in Fars and Persian Iraq confiscated from Shaykh ‘Ali Khan in 1763 (6.2) had provided him with

44, Ansari, 229. 45, Dehqan, 385.

46. Esfahani, 2a-3a.

47, TGG, 77-78. 48. Minorsky, TM, 147-48; Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo, 259. Our

Soviet historians, curiously, appear to disapprove of this policy. 49. Kalantar, 65-66.

236 Iran under Karim Khan an income of sixty Tabrizi tumans per day 7° Revenues from poll taxes, customs, and other commercial dues must have risen considerably as a result of the policies outlined below (14.4-5, 15.2, 5, 8). Tribute and pishkash were exacted from the valis of Kurdistan, Luristan, and 'Arabestan, the Banu Ka'b, the Bakhtyari, and other vassals, sometimes peacefully and sometimes only through a show of force. ‘Avarez revenue, though mostly a respectable and expected supplement, was in many cases not only neglected but positively repudiated by Karim once he came to power. Certainly he exacted a crushing indemnity from Basra (12.6), a defeated foreign enemy. It would likewise be reasonable to assume that Zand commanders on campaign availed themselves of the opportunities for free or cheap forage, proviSions, and labor in the Vakil's name, though without his express approval; it is, moreover, recorded that he reproved both 'Ali Mohammad and Zaki Khan for their barbarous conduct in Mazandaran (9.4-5). Booty from defeated rivals or rebels was never hoarded; that from Mir Mohanna was distributed to his former henchman who rebelled in favor of the Zands (10.3). In the case of Taqi Khan of Yazd, a deposed official was made to disgorge his gains to his victims rather than simply mulcted for the state treasury. Forced labor was not employed on the one project where it might have been expected, the fortification and rebuilding of Shiraz (16.1); the Vakil paid the twelve thousand-strong labor force from the treasury, and indeed the project may have been "'expressly undertaken by him, for the purpose of supporting a number of industrious hands, which were without employ." More remarkable is that Karim made it a personal rule not to appropriate windfalls. When an Indian merchant died heirless in Shiraz and the Vakil was advised "in accordance with the custom of rulers" to confiscate the man's considerable residue, he is reported to have exclaimed angrily, 'We are not washers of the dead!"' and ordered that the money be set aside and guarded, and efforts made to

find the man's heirs .°° Again, during the rebuilding of Shiraz, a pot of gold coins was found in a newly dug trench: this Karim shared out among the workmen

on the site.>” The following anecdote”™ furnishes a touching allegory of the revolution this constituted for a nation so long accustomed to avarice and extortion as traits natural to its ruler. While supervising some reconstruction at the Allaho Akbar Gorge outside Shiraz, the Vakil sat eating a melon. The tribes were returning from their summer pastures, and a tribal elder passing with his flocks was drawn into conversation over a share of Karim's melon. He told Karim regretfully that he had no issue to inherit his accumulated wealth, which he was carrying with him 50. GM, 109. The tuman of Tabriz was worth about 0.8 that of Shiraz. S1. TGG, 155; Francklin, 303-4. 52. Rostam, 421 (ma morda-shuy nistim ke amvalashra zabt konim); Fraser, An Histortecal . . . Aecount, 364. 53. Rostam, 420. 54. Navati, Karim Khan-e Zand, 280-81 (I am unable to find the original

source of this).

Administration, Revenue, and Society 237 in cash on a camel; and he now offered it to the Vakil for his building program. Karim exhorted him to spend it himself on bridges, caravanserais, and other good works as he saw fit and continued to refuse the gift pressed on him. Finally he knelt on his mat, joined by the old man, and weeping, thanked God that his people could freely accumulate and transport their wealth without his coveting it. 14.4 POPULATION

Such improvements, we may be sure, soon brought the peasants back to their fields and the craftsmen back to the bazaars. Many who fled famine-stricken Isfahan and

Julfa in 1756 (4.2) began to return later that year (4.3) and, of those who did not, some settled in the more hospitable climate of Shiraz (4.5). However, large numbers of the wealthiest and most productive classes--particularly merchants, brokers, bankers, the very organs and arteries of commercial life--had left the

country entirely, taking their wealth and expertise with them. The diarist of the East India Company, whose ships were taking on more refugees and fewer trade goods, noted in 1751 how ''from all quarters of the Kingdom, Numbers of the most Substan-

tial People are leaving the Country, on Pretext of going to Mecca." A very large proportion of native Jews and Armenians and other Christians, prime targets of extortion and persecution, likewise fled across every frontier. Niebuhr, commenting on the number of one-eyed and otherwise mutilated victims of Nader's tyr-

anny still to be seen in Iran in 1765, adds: "I have also seen such proofs of his cruelty at Surat, Muscat, Basra, and Baghdad, on both Armenian and Muslim mer-

chants, who had subsequently left their homeland." In Mughal India and Bengal, in Iraq and Yemen, a new generation of Iranians and Armenians had arisen, born of fugitives who arrived between 1742 and 1758; an estimated one hundred thousand Iranian refugees lived in Baghdad and the nearby shrine towns, and Basra was said to be two-thirds populated by refugees. >’ From the mid-1750s, however, rumors of Karim Khan's victories and of his just administration were already spreading abroad, where European and Iranian émigrés

were eagerly scanning 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"; and, indeed, refugees began to return.”° By 1760 their confi-

dence had been justified: ‘people who had left this kingdom... are returning every day through the good policies of Karim Khan and the advantages he secures

for them.'"?? "Trade is being reopened and missionaries will be able to enter." They came in their thousands, of all classes, via the now secure caravan routes-55. GD VI, 31 October 1751.

56. Retse, 179. 57. Carmelites, 671.

58. MAE Perse VII, No. 104.

59. Ibid. VIII, No. 4 (20 July 1760; "par les bons traitements de Kérim-Kan et les douceurs qu'il leur procure.") 60. Carmelites, 662-63.

238 Iran under Karim Khan indeed, they were the most valuable of Iran's growing imports. In 1765 the East India Company's agent at Bushire sent off a train of goods to Shiraz, and "at this opportunity there gathered a variety of travelers, some small traders and some poor Armenian families, who had left Persia because of the internal disturbances but who now wanted to come back to their homeland again."°4 Throughout the Vakil's

reign they continued to flow back, drawn by promises of security and assistance which they found were fulfilled; a caravan of ten thousand assorted travelers left Baghdad for Iran as late as 1771.°7 There is no sure way of demonstrating numerically the results of the Vakil's repopulation drive. The numbers collected in table 1 are tentative, representing for the most part an estimate between those available for the mid or late Safavid and the early Qajar period. In some cases, however, an attempt can be made to illustrate demographic redistribution between about 1730 and 1790. Isfahan, which may have had between a quarter and half a million inhabitants in its Safavid heyday, had fallen to perhaps 20,000 by 1750. By 1772 it had risen to an estimated 40,000-50,000, and was still growing in 1800.°° Shiraz, which in 1756 appeared "demolished and destroyed . . . altogether depopulated and empty of Christians," was nevertheless already the daily goal of refugees from Isfahan, particularly Armenians from the suburb of Julfa (4.5). 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 (see 16.1). After Agha Mohammad Khan's sack of the Zand capital in 1792, the population fell by about half to some 20,000.°° Other towns of central Iran, such as Qom, which suffered at the hands of the Afghans and the Afsharids and again in the Zand-Qajar wars, reportedly revived during the reign of Karin Khan, °°

The Vakil cannot be given exclusive credit for this. In years such as 1773 and 1774, it was perhaps more the plague in Iraq that drove thousands of families from Baghdad and Basra to take refuge in Iran; they were, however, assigned sev-

eral villages near Isfahan.” 61. Niebuhr, Reise, 96. 62. Carmelites, 672.

63. Grimod, 354; Carmelites, 671. Most contemporary (and modern!) estimates of the population of Safavid Isfahan range from 500,000 to 2 million, which seems too high; see Emerson, 18. Olivier (V, 179) estimates 50,000 in 1800, and Malcolm (520 note) 100,000. 64. Carmelites, 700. 65. These are nineteenth-century estimates: see G. N. Curzon II, 45; Monteith, "Notes," 118; Hambly, "An Introduction," 72 (using Malcolm's estimates in the Melville Papers; see chap. 15, note 20). 66. Olivier V, 163-64. Hambly, however, doubts the assumption of observers in the early Qajar period that the decline in population was temporarily reversed during Karim Khan's reign ("An Introduction," 70). 67. Ferriéres de Sauveboeuf, 34.

Administration, Revenue, and Soctety 239 14.5 THE ARMENIANS AND JEWS

The Armenian town of New Julfa, founded by Shah ‘Abbas in 1603, and the district of Peria, west of Isfahan, where many Armenian and Georgian villages were estab-

lished, make an instructive case study in that it is relatively well documented and represents in many ways a microcosm of Iran during this period. During the Afsharid interregnum, Julfa was doubly drained of wealth: many of the richer citizens fled abroad, and those who remained were reduced to poverty by the demands of successive invaders .° During Mohammad Hasan Khan's visitation of 1756, for example, the Julfans were obliged to melt down even the ecclesiastical vessels, ornaments, and vestments to satisfy his tax collectors .°” In 1758 refugees from the devastated countryside were squatting in the derelict houses. When the Bakhtyari-Zand coalition captured Isfahan in 1750, Karim Khan was put in control of Julfa, and he treated the inhabitants with kindness--according

to the Armenian historian, as the result of a dream. /+ After his punitive raid on the Georgian village of Akhura (1.9), the Vakil was petitioned by Bishop Zakariah and Kalantar Sergis to free the Armenians he had captured there, and to bring in peasants from the villages of Peria to join them in repopulating Julfa.

This he did; but the experiment, like others of its kind, failed, since ''the peasants were unaccustomed to urban life and unused to the climate; they had difficulties in providing their livelihood and therefore returned to Peria."" The Vakil Was annoyed and sent a party under his vizier Torab Khan to punish them.’ After his defeat of Azad and Mohammad Hasan, Karim Khan had no direct deal-

ings with Julfa. But he maintained an active interest in its progress, particularly through Kalantar Sergis, who became his special envoy to the Armenian diaspora. In 1753 some Julfans successfully petitioned the Dutch East India Company to join their colony on Kharg Island, and in 1765 Sergis was sent there to request assistance against Mir Mohanna and to ask that all Armenians on Kharg be transported to Julfa; the Dutch answer was equivocal. ’* On Karim's orders he wrote

regularly to Julfan refugees abroad, in conjunction with the prelate and other Julfan notables, to persuade them to return; and when this did not work, he was ordered in Safar 1187/May 1773 to go personally to Basra. His words still fell on deaf ears, and he returned to spend the rest of his life in Shiraz. Many Armenians still refused to return when Basra fell to Sadeq Khan, who accordingly fined them heavily.” 68. Hovhanyants, 284; Ferriéres de Sauveboeuf, 32-33. 69. Hovhanyants, 288.

70. Carmelites, 700.

71. Hovhanyants, 280, 311. In the museum of Vang Cathedral, New Julfa, there is a farman of the Vakil dated 1166/1752 freeing the Julfans from oppressive taxation. 72. Hovhanyants, 281-82. 73. Brteven 2716 (1753), 78-80; 3076 (1767), 11-12; cf. below, 15.7. 74, Hovhanyants, 311-12, 315, 318. The original edict addressed to Kalantar Sergis is preserved in the library of the monastery of Amenprki¢'.

240 Iran under Karim Khan Despairing of repopulating the great number of derelict dwellings and lands, the surviving landowners of Julfa in 1770 drafted an agreement to demolish buildings beyond repair and plant the sites with vineyards, and to share out and cultivate abandoned fields among themselves and any new arrivals, making provision for the reimbursement of returning claimants. Non-Armenians were to be excluded from any property thus sold or given away, to preserve the community. A census taken by the prelate at this time gave a total of 1,667 souls, perhaps counting only adult males. 7° Even if we quintuple this figure to allow for women and children,

giving about 8,500, it is evident that Julfa had fallen far below its seventeenthcentury population of several tens of thousands.” Shiraz siphoned off many Armenians from Julfa and Peria, as it welcomed back those from abroad. They were occupied as today chiefly in viticulture and the wine trade, had their own kalantar in Shiraz--where their quarter was in the western corner, by the Kazerun Gate--and were encouraged to settle around the capital by the grant of complete villages. The prelate, Mkrtic' Vardapet, spent six months of every year at Shiraz and six at Julfa./7 Many Jews, whose numbers may have dropped by some twenty thousand between

1747 and 1779, returned to make Shiraz the biggest Jewish center in Iran, ’8 They were allotted their own quarter, west of the bazaar, for which they paid a special tax. They appeared to be living in relative poverty in 1765, but were not subject

to direct persecution until after the Vakil's death. /” 14.6 AGRICULTURE AND PUBLIC WORKS

The agricultural revival was left as always to the resilient peasantry to effect, once peace and internal security had been reestablished. Up to about 1760 extortion was the rule, but even Mohammad Hasan Khan was worried about the long-term

effects of the ravages of his own and of Azad's army over the past two years when he found in 1757 that famine-stricken Isfahan could not support itself, let alone provision his army for a campaign in Fars (4.5). He was advised by Amir Mohammad Sami' Ganj 'Ali-Khani, Rostam's grandfather, to demand "voluntary contributions"

from the local notables and landlords by rote, to bring provisions and seed from the northern provinces to sow a fresh crop, and in the meantime to put the poor and needy in the care of those still with substance, binding the latter under contract (eZtezam-namcha) to provide for them until they were self-sufficient. 75. Hovhanyants, 312-15. The same source gives the population of Julfa in the 1850s as 1,586 males and females (i.e., adults only?), quoted in Issawi, 59. 76. A 1630 estimate gives 30,000 for the town and 50,000 for the district of Peria (Lockhart, Safavt Dynasty, 474, 477); cf. Gregorian, 661, 663, 667, 669. These figures seem somewhat inflated; the present-day population of Julfa is only some 12,500 (cf. Kayhan II, 425). Malcolm estimated the population of Julfa in 1800 at about 12,000 (p. 521). 77. Niebuhr, Retse, 120; Hovhanyants, 315. 78. See Levi, 486-88. 79. Francklin, 60; Niebuhr, Retse, 120. 80. Rostam, 285-88.

Administration, Revenue, and Soctety 2A1 The first of these measures was probably taken (at was in one form or other standard procedure), but it is unlikely that the long-term remedies were pushed through by the Qajar chief, anxious as he was to get his army fit to assault Shiraz as soon as possible. In the event he was forced into full retreat the following sunmer, and Isfahan, free of military occupation for the next twenty-five years, made its own recovery. For details of the Vakil's active interest in the problems of a depressed agriculture, we must again rely on Rostam ol-Hokama'. Karim Khan established state granaries in every province, and replenished them every year, primarily for proVisioning the army. In the autumn of 1775, as a combined result of locusts, blight, and the expensive Basran campaign, there was a shortage of grain in Shiraz and Isfahan so severe that the Vakil had to throw open these granaries for the relief of the poor. In Isfahan, where the price of wheat bread had risen to 500 dinars, the grain was piled up at the four corners of the Maydan-e Shah; at each pile was placed a hundred pairs of scales, and grain was sold to the populace at a fixed rate of 200 dinars per royal man (approximately 13 1b.) of wheat and 100 dinars per man of barley. In Shiraz the shortage became so acute that the Vakil sent off all available beasts of burden to Tehran, Qazvin, and even Azerbaijan to bring back grain. On arrival the cost of this had soared by reason of the arduous journey to 1400 dinars per Tabrizi man (approx. 6.5 1b.); and Karim was assured by

his advisers that they would have to sell it at a rate of 1500 dinars to cover all expenses. At this he laughed sardonically and suggested they open a haymarket into the bargain, for at that rate they would be no better than corn chandlers ('atlaf); and without further ado he ordered the wheat grain sold at 200 dinars

per man-e Tabriz and the barley at 100 (i.e., twice the rate at Isfahan) and the loss made good out of the treasury. With the aid of this subsidy, the famine was eventually beaten. ° Like most other Iranian rulers, the Vakil confined his building largely to the capital. This was the natural result of the decentralized nature of government: poor communications, traditional local loyalties, and the vagaries of empire meant that the provincial governors, while owing (and sometimes paying) nomi-

nal and fiscal allegiance to the central ruler and soliciting exemptions and subSidies, had in practice an almost entirely free hand in the year-to-year running of their domains. This naturally included building, irrigation, and all other public works, in which the local governor or other magnates would take the initiative. On certain occasions the ruler was able directly to promote civic welfare in the provinces. Toward the end of 1192/1778, an earthquake shook the town and province of Isfahan and especially Kashan, where ten thousand people are said to have been buried alive. Karim Khan sent masons and workmen under the supervision 81. Rostam, 421-22; cf. FR XVII, 1107 (19 October 1775); Kalantar, 67-68.

242 Tran under Karim Khan of Mohammad Taher Beg Zand, nephew of Zaki Khan, and Manuchehr Beg Zand, to repair the damage .°4 The Vakil presumably had several public works undertaken in his home province

of Fars, but none of a substantial enough nature to attract notice. One identified by Curzon is the caravanserai of Khana Korgan, near a bridge over a stream 14 miles south of Dehbid, on the way to the ruins of Pasargadae.°* Kerman boasts in the Hammam-e Ebrahim Khan a wall painting depicting Rustam in combat, which is said to date from the time of Karim Khan, and a Karvansaray-e Vakil, which, though

described as Qajar, may perhaps owe its name to the Zand ruler." Karim Khan also left some buildings in Tehran during the two years he was preparing for operations against Fath 'Ali Khan Afshar (5.2). According to Nami, he built a splendid palace in a short time, and Ghaffari states more specifically that, since Shah Tahmasb's wall with its 114 towers had been destroyed by Ashraf's Afghans, leaving the town poorly protected, Karim rebuilt the wall and added a strong fortress with turrets and a moat, as also a dtvan-khana (government offices) with a garden to one side of this °° Tehran already boasted an Isfahan-style chahar bagh from the time of Shah ‘Abbas and a palace complex, the work of Shah Solayman; with the Vakil's additions, these formed the nucleus of the Golestan Palace complex as extended and completed by the Qajar monarchs . °° The implication

is plain that the Zand ruler was anticipating the Qajars in considering Tehran as

a possible capita1;°” but in view of the situation at this critical time, it seens more likely that he merely wanted a defensible base from which to observe the recently subdued Qajar provinces of Gorgan and Mazandaran and to prepare for what might--and in the event did--turn out to be a lengthy campaign in Azerbaijan. His choice of Shiraz as a capital, forced on him by his having been repeatedly driven back there by Azad and Mohammad Hasan Khan, had already been made by 1756, four

years previously (4.6). Tehran and Shiraz were the two poles of Persian Iraq, the one sitting at the gates of Azerbaijan and the Caspian provinces, the other dominating Fars and the Gulf littoral from Khuzestan to Lar. Both must be held to secure western Iran; to lose either was to invite ultimate collapse in the face of a buildup of hostile forces at the weak pole. When the Vakil left Ardabil in 1763, bypassing Tehran Face had to be saved and scapegoats found: on 5 January 1777 the grand vizier, Dervish Mehmet Pasha, was deposed and banished, charged amongst other crimes

with misappropriation of funds "destined for the prosecution of the Persian war,"' and next month the Russian envoy was told airily that Karim Khan had been obliged to withdraw his forces to defend Fars against an invasion from Khorasan. “° After the return of Vehbi Efendi in September 1775, with little to show for his pains other than a diverting versified travel-diary in which he ridicules the Vakil and his court as hostile boors , “7 negotiations were continued: ‘Abdollah Beg Kalhor

44, Niebuhr, Retse, 327. 45. SP 97/52 (1776}, 59b, 146a-b. 46. SP 97/53 (1777), 19a, 24b-25a. 47. The Qastda-ye Tannana, pp. 12-17 in his Divan. Vehbi was in fact received with all due honor in Shiraz, and “Omar Pasha, jealous of this (according to Unat)--or, more likely, anticipating that Vehbi's report would confirm Zand

Trade and Foreign Relations 255 was sent posthaste to Istanbul in Sha'ban 1189/October 1775 with a courteous but firm exposition of the Vakil's demands (12.3) and over the next two years the fruitless debate went on between Baghdad, whence Shavi-zada was sent in 1777, and Shiraz, which returned Haydar Qoli Khan Zangana later that year (13.4). Rumors and promises of a peaceful settlement arrived constantly at Istanbul, only to be refuted; *® with Turkey once again threatened by Russia, the Vakil could afford to bargain hard. Ultimately the dialogue was ended by the death of ‘Abdollah Pasha in February of 1778, and almost a year later the Porte finally sought a fatwa to make war on fellow Muslims and issued a circular to "all the khans and notables of Iran" declaring the sultan's intention to mount a punitive campaign against their arrogant and duplicitous Vakil. Even then the tone of the document was one of injured dignity, ending with a conciliatory promise of peace and friendship once Karim Khan had been taught a lesson.” By the time this was distributed the Vakil would be dead and the status quo ante well on the way to restoration--except for the prosperity of Basra. Thanks to the ambivalent buffer status of the Baghdad pashalik, the five years of undeclared conflict and occupation were conducted with impunity by the Vakil, and without undue loss of face by a lethargic Ottoman government. Another complicating factor was the sudden rupture of diplomatic exchange with the death of Nader, even before the treaty of 1746 could be ratified, and the conflicting claims of the Afsharid state in Khorasan and of Karim Khan's realm to be recognized as the successor to Nader Shah's (or, more properly, the Safavid) empire. The former renewed contact first: envoys from 'Adel Shah, Ebrahim Shah, and Shahrokh

Shah in rapid succession assured the Porte of their eagerness to ratify the territorial provisions of Nader's treaty (the vexed religious questions were for the moment skirted) and their desire for peace and friendship, and they received cautious replies in kind.°° Contact with the Vakil was established only in 1775, on the Porte's initiative; nevertheless, as his aggressive neighbor, this was the Iran the sultan would have to treat with. This was decisively demonstrated early in 1778, when an envoy from Khorasan was snubbed”! --the Porte had evidently pinned

its hopes on Shavi-zada's mission at Shiraz. With the death of Karim Khan before agreement could be reached, the clock was

set back to 1747. Esma'il Khan Qashqa'i, Karim's confidant during his last years and self-styled chamberlain, appropriated the presents that had arrived for the complaints--denounced the envoy to “Abd o1-Hamid as having improperly conducted

his mission. The sultan ordered his execution, but Vehbi returned incognito and hid in Usktidar, writing his gastda to refute “Omar's accusations. He was later pardoned and appointed qagi of Rhodes (see Unat, 134-36; SP 97/51 [1775], 116). 48. SP 97/54 (1778), 4, 90, 91b, 98. 49. Name-t Humayfin, IX, 90; cf. Cevdet II, 58, 305.

50. Na@me-i Hima@yfn, III No. 3, 52-84; Hatt-i Huwmnayfin, 138-44, 150, 180; SP

97/34, 123a. S51. SP 97/54, 40b.

256 Iran under Karim Khan Vakil and dismissed the Porte's latest envoy with a receipt .>” Turco-Iranian relations were to be interrupted for the remainder of the Zand period. 15.4 PERSIAN GULF TRADE SINCE THE DEATH OF NADER

Iran's commerce in the Gulf during the greater Safavid period shared many characteristics with the Caspian commerce. Since early Safavid times the East India companies of the European maritime powers--the Portuguese (until 1622), the British, the French, and the Dutch--had concluded trade agreements with the shahs and set up trading posts on Iranian territory. These suffered from a lack of deepwater harbors, from marauding armies and capricious overlords, and they accounted for a smaller proportion of Iran's foreign trade than their voluminous records might suggest; yet their vicissitudes mirror the course of Iran's economic and

political history, and their activities often presage the colonial-imperialist age to come.

The principal British bases here were at Bandar 'Abbas (Gombroon), opened about 1620, and Basra, opened twenty years later. Basra they shared ordinarily with the French, the Dutch, and the British Levant Company, by virtue of its charter to trade throughout the Ottoman Empire; Bandar ‘Abbas with the Dutch only .?> The chief commodities brought in by the company were woollen goods, European sat-

ins, linen cloth from Bengal and Surat, lead, tin, and teak, in exchange for which they took on at Basra dates, coffee (from Mocha and 'Oman), walnuts, nitre, pearls, and, probably most important, transit passengers and mail for India; and through Bandar 'Abbas, chiefly silk from Gilan, and goat's wool and copper from Kerman. The company's official business accounted for perhaps 15 per cent of the volume of Gulf commerce. That of the other European companies and the private trade of East India Company agents acting for themselves together made up about 10 per cent.

This trade exported chiefly articles of smaller bulk, such as carpets, fruits, wine, horses, mules, asafoetida, dyestuffs, pistachios, almonds, raisins, pearls, grain, dried fruit and fish, and Persian cats.>" But the bulk of the Gulf trade, perhaps 75 per cent, was in the hands of "country" merchants (Arab, Iranian, Turkish, Armenian, and Indian) of varying capacities. One of the biggest was the house of Chelebi, Armenians originally from Mosul, who traded between Surat and

Basra five or six times a year, partly in their own ships (they had a shipyard at Surat) and partly using those of the East India Company: they brought cotton cloth, hardware, bamboo for Arab lances, firewood, and even stones, which were used for 52. Hatt-t Hum@yitin,1390 (report dated Jomada II 1193/May 1779). Esma%il is

here referred to as the self-appointed kap1r kethudasr; cf. Rostam, 338, where he is called Karim Khan's nadim o kalim, and Donboli, Tajreba I, 134, who describes him as the vakil-e dtvan.

53. Danvers, 384 f£.; Sestini, 209. For the early relations of the British

and Dutch companies with Iran, see Lockhart, Safavt Dynasty, chap. 29. 54. Ives, 198-99; Niebuhr, Retse, 95, 113, 213; Sestini, 197; Masson, 543. The estimate of proportions I owe to Thomas Ricks (private communication); cf. Hambly, ''An Introduction," 80; Amin, 117 ff.

Trade and Foretgn Relattons 257 ballast and sold on arrival at Basra. They also traded directly at Isfahan and Hawiza.>>

The overall volume of trade during the calamitous interregnum is likely to have dropped drastically,” but that of the sea traffic seems to have remained Steady since Safavid times, or even to have increased proportionally, to take over some of the overland trade, which had now disappeared together with the Jewish, Indian, and Armenian middlemen and the safety of the roads. As far as can be judged from the East India Company's records, both local and foreign trade remained "vigorous and profitable" during 1745-53. In 1751 some £45,000 worth of goods was exported to the Gulf, mostly via Bandar 'Abbas--equivalent to one

quarter of the company's total exports to the East.>/ At Basra European traders were subject to a standard 3 per cent tax on imports, laid down by the terms of the capitulations agreed with the Porte. This rate, based on the actual selling price of goods at Basra, often worked out in practice at least as burdensome as the 7.5 per cent levied on local merchants, which was based on an arbitrary and out-of-date scale of values registered in the customs daftar; furthermore, the 3 per cent was levied a second time on commodities being shipped on to Baghdad or Aleppo. It was thus to the company's advantage to maintain whenever possible a duty-free base in Iran. >® But an Iranian port had

its peculiar disadvantages. It had to be fortified and garrisoned against marauders; Bandar ‘Abbas in 1758 had a dozen large cannon facing, significantly, landward, and some smaller-bore guns pointing to sea.>> Even this was no guarantee against the rapacity of a "friendly" overlord like Nasir Khan Lari or a visiting Sardar of the Garmsir (7.7). Bushire, the East India Company's later base, was closer to the capital, but the journey to Shiraz through the Tangestan passes could vary from one to three weeks depending on the safety of the road,°? and profit was further cut back by the rahdaris on the way, plus another customs due at Shiraz. On Nader's death in 1747 the East India Company still had its inland agencies at Isfahan and Kerman. Their withdrawal had already been considered for some time after 1733, when the British at Basra had been forced to aid the Turks against

Nader's invasion forces, thus jeopardizing their relations with the conqueror; but his naval aspirations had then prompted him to favor the company until the indiscriminate oppression of his later years .°L His death at first brought hopes of a new settlement. In October 1747 the agent at Isfahan optimistically petitioned

55. Sestini, 196-97, 208.

96. Cf. Olivier VI, 115. Malcolm, however (Hambly, "An Introduction," 77), estimated in 1801 that the traditional overland caravan routes still accounted

for half Iran's total volume of foreign trade. 57. Amin, 40, 151; Ricks, "Politics," 232. 58. Kelly, 37. 59. Ives, 199. 60. Niebuhr, Retse, 113. 61. Lorimer, 86; Amin, 17-20.

258 Iran under Karim Khan "Adel Shah for a renewal of the company's privileges; and though Shahrokh Khan at Kerman "also wrote the Agent a very Complisant letter" requesting him to stay on and assuring him of the new king's high regard for Europeans, no royal farman was forthcoming. Similar representations were made to the British and the Dutch at Bandar ‘Abbas by Saleh Khan at Shiraz; °” and though both companies decided to re-

tain their factories at that port to await events, the chaos inland was evidently increasing. On 1 December Bombay authorized the immediate withdrawal of the agent from Kerman and, as soon as possible, from Isfahan. This was not, however, put

into effect until 'Ali Mardan's reduction of the city in the spring of 1750, when the factory was plundered and two visiting East India Company employees, one of them Graves, the agent from Kerman, were stripped, robbed, and wounded before they were finally able to slip away to Bandar ‘Abbas. The next year, apparently on

Karim Khan's capture of the city (1.9), their interpreter was sold into slavery (though later ransomed) .° In October, however, a favorable ragam arrived at the port over Esma'il III's seal; the factors replied cautiously that they would stay in the hope of better treatment, otherwise they were prepared to leave." The Isfahan factory was never reopened. A company representative returned to Kerman and remained until 1758, since merchants from Mashhad and other northern

centers were unwilling to face the hazards of the road to Bandar 'Abbas; but the main reason for retaining a base there, the celebrated Kerman wool from the local breed of long-haired goats, became progressively scarcer in the general dearth that overlay the province; and except for the company's Armenian "linguist" (in-

terpreter), who remained as their representative into the 1760s, this last foothold in the interior was also relinquished.°° By this time, however, Karim Khan had firmly established his rule in Fars and was expanding northward, so that both the British and the Dutch perceived the advantage of changing their fruitless and dangerous base at Gombroon for one closer to the new political center of Shiraz. 15.5 THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, 1750-69.

The physical and financial dangers to the British and Dutch factories at Bandar 'Abbas from Baluchi raiders and invading generals and above all the exactions of their "protectors,'' the governor Molla 'Ali Shah and Nasir Khan of Lar, are too numerous to detai1.°° The Dutch finally withdrew to Kharg early in 1759 (15.7), and in the same year the East India Company's decision to leave was accelerated by a curious incident, the only repercussion of the Seven Years' War in the Gulf:

62. GD VI, 19 and 21 October, 7 November 1747; cf. Amin, 25. 63. GD VI, 20 December 1747; Brieven 2679 (1752), Gombroon 21-22 (17 February 1751); Lorimer, 90. 64. GD VI, 9 October 1751. 65. GD VI, 31 December 1751; XII, 1 and 5 March, 13 May 1761; Amin, 43. 66. See GD VI, 25 January to 24 February 1752; Lorimer, 98-102; Amin, 42.

Trade and Foretgn Relattons 259 two French privateers attacked and looted the factory, Molla 'Ali Shah joining in with enthusiasm. °/ Evacuation from Bandar 'Abbas had in fact been ordered by Bombay as early as

February 1751, but the agent persuaded the council that it was worth their while to stay. In October 1754 Agent Francis Wood had been ordered to set up a factory at Bandar Rig, but this experiment failed, owing in British eyes to Dutch machinations, but probably purely as a result of Mir Mohanna's opposition (10.3). In 1759 the company was compensated to some degree by a farman from the pasha of

Baghdad renewing its trading privileges at Basra,and was able for the time being to concentrate its efforts there.°° Trade was not the only reason for transferYing British activities to the safer end of the Gulf: with the French wars, the overland mail route between Aleppo and Basra had gained in importance as a shortcut to India. A courier took only fifteen days to travel over the desert between the two terminalis, and by the end of the war this "direct route" meant a saving of over half a year on the time taken to sail around the Cape.°9 In 1761 the new agent, Douglas, was sent on a tour of the Gulf ports with a View to selecting the most favorable site for a new factory. He reported to Borbay that the best in his view was Bushire, since "a Person there need have no ccnnections, or caress anyone but the Sheikh himself"; but the directors in London ignored his recommendation and in April 1762 issued orders for a move to Basra. ? The evacuation of Bandar 'Abbas, begun on 26 February 1763 with the help cf three British warships, was hampered by Nasir Khan's brother Ja'far Khan Lari, who had refused reparation for past plundering and extortion. Douglas therefore launched a fighting withdrawal, driving Ja'far Khan and his men from his residence (the former Dutch factory) and the garrison from the fortress, before embarking on 7 March. They had lost thirteen men and taken no booty, but had at least the satisfaction of having delivered a longed-for parting shot at their fickle hosts by means of ''these spirited and on the whole well-conducted operations .'”1 Basra was now the sole East India Company agency in the Gulf. Contact, however, was maintained with Bushire, and only a few months later the shaykh's letters with their tempting offers brought results. One William Price was empowered by Bombay to call at Bushire on his way to Basra and negotiate for a site. In April 1763 he concluded with Shaykh Sa'dun (Naser's deputy while he was a "guest" at Shiraz) a twelve-point agreement which gained for the company a duty-free monopoly to import woollen goods at Bushire, with full facilities for setting up an agency.’ For ratification by the shaykh's overlord, Karim Khan, Price sent 67. For details of this incident, see GD XIII, 29 March 1761; ANP, B1.175, 9 January 1760 et seq.; Lorimer, 102-5; Saldanha, 132-36; Danvers, 400; Amin, 44. 68. Saldanha, 73, 80, 91-92; Vadala, 41; Danvers, 400.

69. Sestini, 211; Amin, 60; Nash'at, 112-13.

70. BP XXVI, 18 January 1763; Wilson, 178; Lorimer, 94; Amin, 45-50. 71. Lorimer, 94-96; Amin, 50. 72. Brteven 3015 (1765), 6; Amin, 71-72. Full copies of the English version of this agreement are given in FR XVI, 806 (12 April 1763) and Aitchison, 41-42.

260 Iran under Karim Khan his assistant Jervis to Shiraz. In the Vakil's absence in Azerbaijan, Jervis was favorably received by Sadeq Khan and returned to Bushire in August bearing the East India Company's first commercial treaty with the new ruler of Iran, in the form of a "Royal Grant" to Price as ''Governour General for the English Nation in the Gulph of Persia,"’ dated 23 Zu'l-Hejja 1176/2 July 1763./°

Its principal points were as follows: the British were to have as much land in Bushire as they wished, where they might keep twenty-one cannon no larger than six-pounders ''for saluting," and could have factory houses anywhere else in the country they wished; they were to be free of duty on imports, exports, and inland trade, and their Iranian customers were not to be charged more than 3 per cent; they were to enjoy a monopoly (except in the export of raw silk, which was a royal

monopoly), with the right to seize the goods of any interlopers; freedom of religion was guaranteed, their brokers and interpreters were to be exempt from taxes, and the former company house at Shiraz was to be restored to them. In return they were to take a fair proportion of goods in kind, ''and not export from Persia the whole Amount of their sales in ready Money, as this will impoverish the Kingdoms

[sic] and in the end prejudice Trade in general," and were not to assist ''the King's Enemies."

There is every reason to suppose that the Vakil had encouraged Shaykh Sa'dun's approach to the East India Company. It was part of his general policy to revive trade in his ruined kingdom, and his proviso limiting the export of cash shows that he or his advisers were well aware of the effect of the drain of specie on Iran's balance of trade. Like Nader, he also saw the company as the only promising ally against coastal marauders; this idée fixe was to dominate his relationship with the company for the remainder of his reign. Trade at Bushire flourished: during the period 1763-67 the company's annual sale of woollens in the Gulf averaged 1,407 bales, most of which (750 bales annually in 1763-65) went through Bushire. This shows a considerable increase over the annual average of 868 bales during 1753-62, when the chief factory was at Bandar ‘Abbas, and accounts for roughly one-fifth of all sales in all East India Company settlements in the Fast./" Iran's export of raw silk also revived with the response of the northern provinces to the Vakil's presence. Along the routes of his campaigns, security of the roads brought increased inland traffic; by late 1764 the roads between Shiraz and Isfahan and up to the Russian frontier were daily filled with merchants.’> This trend was inversely proportional to the inciplent political and hence commercial decline of Basra: Solayman Aga, the motasallem from 1765 to 1776, though a capable ruler, was at that time subject to

73. Brydges, cix; Amin, 73-75; Moqtader, 55; Mahmud, 4-6. The full text of the English version of this agreement is given in FR XVI, 782 and Aitchison, 4244; cf. Sykes, 280 (contents). 74, Amin, 79, 82, 151, 155; cf. ANP, B1.175, 1 February 1775. 75. Brteven 3048 (1766), 36-37.

Trade and Foretgn Relattons 261 pressure from the Ka'b, at the zenith of their power, from the East India Company, and from his own superior, ‘Omar Pasha, who dismissed him from office three times (11.2). The resulting weakness of the Basran government was in large measure the cause of the British involvement with the Banu Ka'b, disastrous both to their conmerce and to their relations with Karim Khan, and of the Iranian siege and occupation, which spelled the end of Basra as the leading port in the Persian Gulf (12.8). Sadeq lost no time in testing the extent of the new agreement, requesting in the same year naval assistance against Mir Mohanna at Bandar Rig. Both Bombay and the agent were reluctant to comply. The Vakil then wrote to Jervis in September 1764 to say he would soon be on the coast to conduct operations in person and expected to see a few British ships ready to help him; but poor organization on both Sides scotched this plan (10.3). Rightly or wrongly, this opportunity to retain the Vakil's favor was rejected. The council in Bombay, and even more the directors in London, were reluctant to yield to this creeping blackmail in a relative backwater of their commercial empire, particularly as Mir Mohanna had as yet done them no harm. In March 1766, when a reinforcement fleet arrived to prosecute the static war against the Ka'b, the Basra resident was forbidden to sanction its use against Mir Mohanna. ’° This attitude was changed, however, when the Ka'b impudently sought Karim's protection as his subjects later in 1766, and the Vakil peremptorily ordered the British and the Turks to quit his territory at Dawragq (10.8). The presidency ‘now appreciated that if they were to have any satisfaction from the Ka'b, they must toe the line on the question of help against Mir Mohanna; but they resolved in addition to press for the grant of an island (preferably Kharg, when recaptured) and half of any plunder that should be taken from the pirate--this on top of Karim's existing offer of compensation from the Ka'b and confirmation of their privileges at Bushire. By now they were also aware that a good part of Karim's equivocal attitude stemmed from Jervis's neglect to present him with any gift on his arrival at Shiraz in 1765, and their refusal to supply him with an annual 2000 tumans' worth of cloth for his army on his terms, which included the company's bearing the cost of carriage to Shiraz. He was said on one occasion to have demanded angrily what use these English were to the country and ordered their agents out of Shiraz. The presidency accordingly authorized Jervis's successor, Bowyear, to provide a present not exceeding 10,000 rupees (£1,250) in value to ease open the negotiations” The company's envoy, George Skipp, arrived at Shiraz briefed as above in April 1767 and was none too well received. The Vakil, enriched by further gifts from the Banu Ka'b, had refused to receive a preliminary envoy with a letter fron 76. BP XXIX, 25 February 1766; Carmelites, 668; Amin, 67-68. 77. FR XVII, 1000, 1003; BP XXIX, 17 December 1766; cf. Amin, 93-94.

262 Iran under Karim Khan the presidency and scornfully declined at first to accept Skipp's presents ./® Skipp persevered, however, and over the next month managed to obtain the Vakil's acceptance in principle to all their demands, including the cession of Kharg and a

payment of half a million rupees for their naval assistance. Unfortunately, the new Basra resident since the end of 1766, Henry Moore, proved maddeningly obstruc-

tive of this promising turn of events. Jealous of the greater commercial importance of Bushire and apparently nursing a personal antipathy toward Skipp and the Iranians, he had showed himself from the start opposed to Bombay's policy of negotiating with the Vakil and complied but grudgingly with his superiors’ directives. On receiving Skipp's optimistic report in June, he rejected the Vakil's offers out of hand and ordered the envoy home, reporting to Bombay that the negotiations had broken down. His letters reveal an almost pathological distrust of Karim Khan, with wild injunctions to withdraw from Bushire altogether, to declare war on Karim and the Ka'b (in alliance with the Turks and even with Mir Mohanna) in order to secure British supremacy in the cuit.” Skipp returned to Basra toward the end of the year to find that the presidency happily did not share Moore's prejudices and imperialistic pipe dreams; the resident was sharply censured for his misconduct of the talks, a flotilla was dispatched from Bombay to help the Iranians take Kharg, and Skipp was sent back to Shiraz and signed the agreement in May 1768.°0 Yet again Moore managed to sabotage the negotiations: in the same month, impatient of news from Shiraz, Moore

considered himself "under the disagreeable necessity of attempting for him [the Vakil] the reduction of Carrack before Mr. Skipp could bring him to the undermentioned terms,'' and on 20 May ordered a unilateral naval assault which resulted in a disastrous defeat at the hands of Mir Mohanna's men. Then, on the pretext that no Zand troops had appeared to take advantage of the ships from Bombay, not only did he recall Skipp but he ordered the fleet back to Bombay at the end of July,

with the result that when Zaki Khan's amy arrived only two days later, to find the promised transport absent, Anglo-Iranian relations became even more strained

78. GM 160-61; Rostam, 386-88; ANP, B1.175, 27 September 1767; Carmelites,

668. Ghaffari, whose description of this as a Russian embassy reveals his information as second or third hand, assumes it to have proceeded conventionally; the EIC records do not appear to report on Skipp's initial reception, and Karim Khan's

actions at this time seem later to have been misinterpreted by Bombay (BP XXX, 17 November 1767, where a favorable impression of the Vakil's character is obtained from his "Resolute Refusal of the Present carried to him by Mr. Skipp untill Affairs were settled"). However, Rostam's account of the Vakil's scornful reception of one of these embassies, though exaggerated (cf. note 96), is confirmed by the French consul's report, which imputes Karim's attitude to the bribes of the Ka‘b, and by the Carmelites, one of whom accompanied an "English gentleman" from the EIC to Shiraz with a letter from Bombay. Cf. Perry, Correspondence with Rawshanzamir,

in Bar-rasiha-ye Tartkhi, X, No. 3, 246-47, No. 4, 279-84.

79. BP XXIX, 31 January, 8 and 11 September, 5 November 1767; ANP, B1.175, 20 May, 9 October 1767; Amin, 95. 80. BP XXX, 6 and 17 November 1767; XXXI, 23 April 1768; Amin, 95-96.

Trade and Foreign Relations 263 than they had been the previous year. °+ The fall of Mir Mohanna to a coup d'état on Kharg early in 1769 (10.4) pre-

cipitated the last act of this drama. The factors at Bushire, anticipating that Moore would further antagonize the Iranians, deserted to Basra with his full approval. Moore now demanded of the new chief of Kharg, Hasan Soltan, that he place the island under British protection and hand over half Mir Mohanna's boats. Convinced that even Zaki Khan could hardly be more unreasonable, Hasan Soltan showed fight and Moore was compelled to withdraw to Basra, while a Zand garrison landed on Kharg.°?

Less than six years after they had renewed their trade at Basra and commenced at Bushire with every promise of success, the East India Company was left with nothing on the Iranian mainland but the profound mistrust and contempt of the Iranians. At Basra they faced a huge bill for their disastrous war against the Ka'b, a decline in trade and a sudden deterioration of their relations with the motasallem. Moore was roundly censured by Bombay for his loss of the Bushire base and of the Vakil's goodwill, but incredibly enough was allowed to retain his post?» to indulge in further incomprehensible somersaults of policy at the time of the siege of Basra six years later (11.5). The reason for his survival is probably the moral support his policy received from the directors in London. They viewed Karim Khan's legitimate moratorium on the export of specie as unduly restrictive; buoyed up on the wave of confidence after the successes of the Seven Years' War and the recent acquisition of the Diwant (the fiscal control of several Indian provinces), the directors seemed to be ready for a more aggressive and quasi-imperial commitment in the Gulf. They deplored Bombay's tolerance and encouraged Moore in his treatment of the Vakil-and the pasha, for that matter--as another weak and corrupt Indian rajah. But by the end of 1769 the pressure all round had eased considerably: the East India Company concluded a treaty with Haydar 'Ali of the Deccan, the deaths of both Shaykh Salman of the Ka'b and of Mir Mohanna brought peace to the whole upper Gulf, and the temporary replacement of the offending motasallem improved Moore's

relations with the pasha. The directors therefore left "the distress'd and disgraceful situation of our Affairs in the Gulph of Persia" to be mended from Bombay, by a renewed concentration of effort at Basra.°4 15.6 THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, 1769-79

This the presidency was not disposed to do, despite the jubilant Moore's affirmation that Basra was the ideal port for the sale of woollen goods. A committee was 81. BP XXXI, 7 July, 7 and 9 September 1768; XXXII, 24 April 1769; ANP, B1.175, 4 June, 8 July, 12 August 1768; Amin, 99. 82. BP XXXII, 21 and 22 March 1769; Carmelites, 669; Amin, 99-100. 83. BP XXXII, 24 April 1769; FR XVI, 1009; Amin, 100. 84. FR XVI, Private No. 12; cf. Amin, 96-98.

264 Iran under Karim Khan appointed which reported that Bushire was still the company's best potential market, since far more woollens were consumed in Iran than in Ottoman Iraq and that the abundant raw silk that was received by the Vakil as revenue from Gilan and that he had offered in exchange would be eminently acceptable.°> It soon became evident that Karim Khan was at least as anxious to attract the company back to Bushire. As early as 10 August 1769 Moore received a letter from Shaykh Naser in Shiraz, intimating that all was forgotten and both the Vakil and he would welcome

the reestablishment of the factory. Moore replied politely but coolly that they would consider this only when the Vakil himself wrote and granted the company com-

pensation for its losses. Further urgings from the shaykh early in 1770 convinced the presidency, if not Moore, that "there seems to be little doubt, that the PerSians are very desirous of our returning into their country," and Moore was authorized to send his subordinate Morley on an embassy to Shiraz 8° Moore remained obdurately opposed to these tentatives. He stressed Karim's initial attitude as displayed to Skipp, "his telling us he wants not our commerce, that it only impoverishes his Kingdom, that no specie shall be exported . . ."'; he further objected that the first two embassies had already cost 10,000 rupees (£1,250) and this was likely to cost 20,000 more, that they would lose face by returning, that the hot season was unsuitable for travelling and, finally discarding these transparencies, that he was perfectly happy with the Turks in Basra and regarded Karim Khan as a capricious and perfidious despot who welcomed such negotiations only because "they give him consequence among his poor and abject sub-

jects, and alike please his vanity and his avarice .""8/ Though Shaykh Naser at Bushire and Hasan Khan of Bandar Rig continued to

write friendly pleas, the Vakil made no move personally. By early 1772 Hasan Khan had been killed and replaced by Mir 'Ali, who dropped the profession of friendship for calculated piracy, with the connivance of Karim Khan. The merchant vessel Britannia fell into his hands, and a messenger sent to Shiraz with a demand for restitution was ill-treated and expelled; Mir 'Ali, however, was well received by the vaki1.°* Then in April 1773, plague hit Basra. Moore and his dozen or so subordinates embarked on two ships, the fourteen-gun Drake and the eight-gun Tyger, and set sail for Bombay. As they were passing Bandar Rig on 26 April, three gallivats Sallied out and Mir ‘Ali's men boarded and captured the Tyger. The Drake escaped, and most of the Tyger's crew jumped overboard; but the prize was beached at Bandar Rig, and the two company employees on board, Beaumont and Green, were sent to Shiraz to serve as hostages for the resumption of the East India Company's trade at Bushire. They had no cause to complain of their treatment (except that the 85. BP XXXII, 31 October, 10 November 1769; Amin, 101.

86. Carmelites, 670; FR XVI, 1009. 87. FR XVI, 1016, 1021 (extracts from Basra Diary, dated 14 and 26 May 1770). 88. FR XVI, 1047 (29 March, 2 August 1772); SP 97/47 (1771), 213b.

Trade and Foretgn Relations 265 Vakil appropriated Green's watch) and were free to walk around the capital and allowed the equivalent of seven rupees a day and abundant wine. One year later they were "'released'' as far as Bushire on the "intercession" of Shaykh Naser, who kept them under much stricter surveillance while negotiations with the company proceeded. Karim Khan also allowed himself to profit from this windfall by incorporating the Tyger with the fleet assembling at Kangan that same winter for Zaki Khan's proposed invasion of Oman, and later against Basra.°” Moore and his staff, meanwhile, had not even been allowed to land on reaching Bombay, for fear of spreading infection. On his return to Basra early in 1774, when the plague had subsided, Moore forwarded a letter from the presidency to Karim Khan and himself wrote a less intransigent letter than had been his wont, requesting him to return the prisoners and the ship, to punish the offenders, and to propose his terms for trade. Beaumont and Green wrote to Moore on 5 January that the Vakil was pleased with his overtures but was likely to ask, as part of the bargain, for naval help against Shaykh ‘Abdollah of Hormuz (10.6); and Moore, remembering his Kharg fiasco, hastily advised Bombay against considering this. The expected proposal arrived in February and was politely rejected. Negotiations dragged on in deadlock for another year, despite Green's being released on one occasion to settle his affairs in Basra and take twenty man of raw silk samples as commercial bait.” But the East India Company was no longer interested in Bushire. A revolution was taking place in company policy at both London and Bombay. The Russo-Turkish war of 1768-74 had lessened the Ottoman demand for In-

dian goods during the precise period when the company's sole effort in the Gulf was concentrated at Basra, and the plague of 1773 deait the port another heavy blow; conversely, in India, the company's fiscal and political fortunes had reached such unprecedented heights as to necessitate the Regulating Act of 1773. As a result, an establishment on the Iranian coast was no longer important as a commercial makeweight. Moore, happy to have this in writing from the court of directors, smugly interpreted the British prisoners' view that the company's trade would prosper at Bushire as selfish anxiety for their own release.”! Fortunately, the Bombay presidency, to Moore's chagrin, overrode directives from London to the extent of sending to Bushire on 7 April 1775 an official named Garden, to negotiate a new settlement at the port without insisting on the prior release of the prisoners. The siege of Basra had just begun. Moore and his

Staff arrived at Bushire a week later, after their sudden flight from the beleaguered port, to find negotiations virtually completed and to find, despite Moore's continued expostulations, that Garden and his superiors still held to their opinion formed six years before, “namely that the disagreeable situation of our 1 89. FR XVII, 1053, 1071; Parsons, 183-85; Lorimer, 144; Wilson, 183; Amin, , 90. FR XVII, 1061, 1063, 1065, 1066, 1071, 1078; Parsons, 185; Amin, 111. 91. FR XVII, 1072, 1074; Amin, 107-9, 111, 112.

266 Iran under Kartm Khan affairs in the Gulph was, and still is, owing to the unaccountable antipathy which the Agent seems to have conceived against Carim Caun."

That this antipathy was reciprocated was shown when the Vakil's letter arrived on 24 April ordering the release of the prisoners and the restitution of the Tyger, affecting indifference as to whether they resettled at Bushire or not, and affirming "that he was not an enemy to the English but only to the Agent.'' The next day Beaumont hoisted the flag over the company's second factory at Bushire.?2

The siege of Basra had played no small part in bringing this affair to a conclusion. According to Parsons, Karim Khan had openly avowed that one of his motives in attacking the port was to be revenged on Moore, on whose leaving Basra

he expressed satisfaction to Garden; Garden had realized that if the Iranians took Basra, the company would be left with no base at all in the Gulf unless he first Came to an amicable agreement on Bushire.”” Nevertheless, there arrived on 14 May a raqam from Sadeq Khan guaranteeing the safety of their effects in Basra when he

should take the city and despite Sadeq's rapacity and the barely restrained looting of property that did occur in the captured city, this was duly honored (12.6). Moore himself, understandably, refused to return to Basra. His successors under Zand occupation, Abrahams and Latouche, were complaining by the summer of

1777 that the company was still forced to pay the same 3 per cent as under the Turks, despite promises and farmans. The siege, coming on top of the plague and the depredations of the Ka'b and Montafeq, dealt the last blow to Basra's commerce, and the death of Karim Khan in 1779 removed all hope of a revival. From then on virtually the only reason for the company's maintaining a base there was to superVise the overland communications, since the threat of war with France was once more in the wind; even this facility was soon usurped by Kuwait, together with the bulk of the commerce of the upper Gulf. The new Bushire factory was likewise run at an increasing annual loss, and even before the Vakil's death it had been decided to reduce this also to the status of a one-man residency. In the lower Gulf commerce had already moved from Bandar ‘Abbas to Muscat. From this point on, the

East India Company and its attendant private trade was to all intents a dead letter in the Persian cuif.?4 This does not apply, of course, to the "country trade"; cabotage, transshipment, and oceanic commerce in local lateen-rigged vessels was relatively little affected by the political vicissitudes on shore. But the fortunes of the East India Company during this whole period, in Iran as also at Basra, were closely dependent upon the career, policy, and attitude of Karim Khan. In dealing with individual merchants and envoys, the Vakil's conduct generally supports Francklin's claim that ''to Strangers, and Europeans in particular, he was remarkably affable, 92. FR XVII, 1089; Amin, 113-14. 93. Parsons, 185, 198; FR XVII, 1092, 1095; Amin, 114-15. 94. FR XVII, 1143; Sestini, 206-7; Campbell, 13; Ferriéres de Sauveboeuf, 22-24; Vadala, 42; Amin, 108, 110, 115-16, 133.

Trade and Foretgn Relattons 267 and never suffered any of them to depart without marks of his bounty and generous spirit."”> Toward the East India Company as a whole, his actions could hardly be judged more arbitrary and capricious than those of the amazing Moore. While he Was evidently anxious to promote trade, Karim Khan and his advisers were not unaware of the company's progress toward imperialism, both from questioning merchants and travelers such as Niebuhr”? and directly, through Haydar 'Ali's embas-

Sies (15.8). His policy was basically that of the Safavids and Nader Shah: to use the technological superiority of the Europeans, while keeping them at arms' length. The problems of a closer embrace would await a later generation. 15.7 THE FRENCH AND DUTCH COMPANIES

The French, whose Indian interests dictated their maintenance of representatives in the Levant and the Gulf mainly to watch over their own "direct route," showed little interest in overtaking the British and Dutch in Gulf commerce and established no lasting commercial or diplomatic rapport with the Vakil. Their major preoccupations were political: the French ambassador at Istanbul concerned himself with Iran and the East India Company only insofar as they affected Turkey's potential contribution to the balance of power in Europe. In 1748 the French consul at Baghdad relinquished his post when his salary had not arrived from Pondicherry for the last two years. He was not replaced for the next ten years, the affairs of both the consulate and the Compagnie des Indes being managed meanwhile by Emmanuel Ballyet, the Carmelite bishop of Babylon. In 1754 an attempt was made to revive the agency of the Compagnie des Indes at Basra, which had now lapsed after flourishing briefly on its transfer from Bandar ‘Abbas

in 1725. One Petro de Perdriau was sent as agent and over the next few years somewhat revived French commercial fortunes in the Guif.?”

95. Francklin, 307.

96. Retse, 104. Rostam (386-90) gives an extravagant and amusing account of British relations with the Vakil, which may be regarded as an allegory of the whole situation woven from a tenuous thread of fact. The Vakil, it seems, rejected the Frankish embassy scornfully, nevertheless impressing the envoy with displays of his courtiers' strength and skill in pastimes such as slicing camels in two and breaking cannon across their knees. He then sent a body of his gholams who seized a Frankish ship, killed the crew, and threw the merchandise overboard. Along came an enormous army of Franks to conquer Iran, and Karim, on the advice of Agha Mohammad Qajar, sent Mir Mohanna a robe of honor and a commission to destroy them. Overjoyed, the pirate dressed 300 of his cutthroats in women's echddors with a brace of pistols and a musket hidden underneath each, and shipped them to the Frankish headquarters at Bandar “Abbas. Spying this welcome consignment through

their telescopes, the Franks opened the fortress gates and were massacred. Their compatriots in India prepared for vengeance, but on learning that the Indians would support the Iranians in the event of war, gave up the project. Through this stirring ragout (which reads like the stuff of one of Agent

Moore's nightmares) the discerning eye may glimpse memories of Skipp's mission, the Tyger incident, the Ka°b wars, Mir Mohanna's capture of Kharg from the Dutch, and Haydar “Ali's embassies (15.8). 97. ANP, B1.175, 15 September and throughout October 1754; Masson, 539, 542; Vadala, 26-27; Amin, 55.

268 Ivan under Karim Khan Despite his efforts, Perdriau and his successors were unable to overcome the enormous disadvantage of their own superiors' comparative lack of interest. Hence the Turks always gave precedence on both ceremonial and more practical accasions to the British agent, whose flourishing trade and larger budget enabled him to make the requisite gifts to the motasallem and the pasha, which the French were in no position to emulate.7® For the same reason Karim Khan, despite his poor view of the parsimonious British, did not take French overtures seriously even when they were eventually made.

In June 1758, the energetic young Dr. Pirault arrived to take over consular duties in Baghdad. He immediately interested himself in the question of commerce at Basra and drafted an elaborate scheme for expansion throughout the Gulf. He quarreled with Perdriau, who in May stormed off to Pondicherry, leaving Pirault

contentedly in charge of affairs at Basra. In 1768, observing with satisfaction Moore's difficulties with Karim Khan, Pirault sent a "linguist" to Shiraz to negotiate an agreement with the Vakil for the exchange of French woollens against Gilan silk and to put out feelers for the cession of Kharg Island.”° Moore was not unduly worried by this surprising development, convinced that French prestige was not up to obtaining, nor their resources to supporting, such an agreement. For once his judgment proved correct, confirmed as it was by Shaykh Naser's broad hint that the Vakil was merely using the French negotiations to prod the British into resuming talks on Bushire. 19° However, the French negotiator rashly agreed that the Compagnie des Indes would supply annually two million articles of woollen clothing for the Iranian army, to be paid for half in cash and half in Gilan silk and Kerman wool; in return for this the Vakil, with an equally cavalier insouciance, agreed to cede them Kharg, which he had also promised to the British and which neither he nor his "governor,"' Hasan Khan, having recently recovered it from Mir Mohanna, had any intention of relinquishing. Nevertheless, this pact was formally confirmed in December 1770 by a ragam issued to the French by the Vaki1.191

In an attempt to realize these castles in the air, Pirault produced a series of ambitious memoranda, including a plea to be allowed to present his case personally in Paris, and a list of recommended values of presents he proposed they give the Vakil and his chief kinsmen and officials. But nothing came of it. Pirault died in the plague of 1773 and was succeeded by Jean-Frangois-Xavier Rousseau, who had been sent to assist him the previous year. The bishop of Babylon and his consular staff also died in the plague, and his successor designate, Dom Miroudot, suggested in a memorandum to the minister before he embarked that 98, Carmelites, 662; Masson (542) judges that "les directeurs de la Compagnie francaise des Indes étaient bien mal informés de l'importance et de la nature du commerce du Golfe Persique."' 99, ANP, B1.175, 8 June 1758 to 20 June 1760; Mémoire 1768; 15 March 1770. 100. FR XVI, 1009 (16 July 1769), 1016 (16 March 1770). 101. ANP, B1.175, 8 September to 19 December 1770.

Trade and Foreign Relattons 269 they should take advantage of Karim Khan's evident interest in French woollens; however, the Vakil died before the abbé reached Baghdad. Rousseau attempted to renew contact with Karim after the occupation of Basra and was even invited to visit Shiraz to negotiate an agreement; but all his efforts foundered on the same frustrating indifference of his superiors and the anarchy that was soon «vu befall Tran, 194

The most spectacular of the Dutch company's activities during the Vakil's reign--their occupation of Kharg and subsequent eviction by Mir Mohanna--has been recounted above (10.3). Established at Bandar ‘Abbas- about the same time as their British counterpart, the Dutch East India Company at first dominated.the Gulf trade, but soon slipped behind its British rivals. In Safar 1160/January 1948 ‘Adel Shah sent a diploma confirming their trading privileges, as did Ebrahim in August and Shahrokh Shah in October of the same year, an embarrassment of favors hardly likely to encourage merchants who had watched their commerce decline dras-

tically in the last three years . °° Business was no better at Basra, or at Bushire, which Agent Byleveld temporarily abandoned; in 1753, in view of this anc

the fact that they were subjected to oppression and extortion at all their bases (as dramatically demonstrated by Baron Kniphausen's misadventure), the directors agreed to accept a friendly request from Mir Nasir of Bandar Rig to set up a factory on his land (precisely where was not specified, and Kharg not mentioned) .2* Kniphausen's seizure and fortification of Kharg produced the desired increase in security and turnover (a steady rise in net profit from fl. 18,771 in 1755-56 to £1. 165,808 in 1758-59, out of a total profit of fl. 416,856 over the years 1753-60) 20° It produced a scheme from Kniphausen for the conquest of Bahrayn and commercial domination of the Gulf that far surpassed in scope the similar suggestions of Consul Yablonskii or Agent Moore, and was similarly ignored. +9® Finally, it produced a brief dialogue with Karim Khan, who on his return to Shiraz in 1765 sent Kalantar Sergis of Julfa to Kharg to request naval assistance against Mir Mohanna and the return of all Armenians who had settled on the island (14.5). The exchange was apparently cordial, but the Dutch ignored both requests. A few months later they were overcome and expelled by Mir Mohanna on his flight from the Vakil's army.

The Dutch merchants, like the Russian and the British, had a limited 102. Ibid., 17 April, 7 September 1771 and adjacent memotres; 1 August 1772, 10 June 1773; Masson, 457, 543. Jean-Frangois-Xavier was the son of Jacob Rousseau of Geneva (a cousin of the famous Jean-Jacques) who had been watchmaker to Shah Soltan Hosayn; see Lockhart, Safavt Dynasty, 433. For his further activities, see H. Hedayati, Tartkh-e Zandziya, 103. Brieven 2640 (1750), Gombroon 94-97, 381-83; 2658 (1751), 33-38, 93-94,

a 104. Brieven 2696 (1753), Basra 15-19; 2716 (1754), Basra 13, 15, 61-70. The shaykh's letter was written in Arabic, Persian, and Armenian to make sure his message got through. 105. Brteven 2890 (1762), 322-23; 2895 (1762), 1844b-1846b. 106. Brteven 2756 (1757), Kharg 52-53 and enclosed correspondence.

270 Iran under Karim Khan appreciation of the local rulers and populace who were their hosts, partners, and rivals (often at one and the same time) and whose understanding of the Europeans was at least as limited; both parties paid the penalty in lost opportunities and legacies of prejudice. The Europeans' diaries and correspondence reveal them to be--witn tho exception of a few individuals--neither intimidated nor condescending, but surprisingly sympathetic toward the sufferings of the populace and shrewdly understanding of the policies of the rulers, if not always of their methods. Business, however, was business; their own security and profit took precedence over cultural exchange, which comes only of total war of tourism. A later Indian traveler provides a parable of this situation in recounting a legend of Kharg current twenty years after the Dutch had left. They had, so the locals allege, begun to raise pigs on the island; one of these animals strayed into the sanctuary of the saint Khizr, who angrily ordered Mir Mohanna to drive out these infideis 197 15.8 THE INDIANS AND THE GULF TRADE

"Ambassadors from the famous Hyder Ali came to the court of Kerim Khan with rich

presents, and expressed a desire of an amicable alliance; the princes of other parts of India, and the Mahratta tribes, also acknowledged his right and power!08 Haydar 'Ali's first embassy to the Vakil arrived at Shiraz in 1184/1770, under one Nurollah, a sayyed of Iranian extraction, bearing gifts that included two elephants, a tiger, a leopard, and a cheetah, and remained two months. An Iranian envoy was sent in return. 1°? The purpose of this embassy is not recorded, but it seems safe to assume that it was essentially the same as that of another embasSy noted in February or March of 1774 by the Vakil's hostages Beaumont and Green.

According to their report, the ruler of the Deccan requested a trading post on the Iranian coast, offered the Vakil naval assistance and proposed a marriage alliance. As far as could be gathered, the latter proposal had been rejected, but the Vakil had promised Bandar ‘Abbas as a trading base, 110 Haydar 'Ali's natural overseas trading partners lay where the monsoons blew,

on the Arabian coast and within the Persian Gulf--especially since his conquest of Malabar in 1765. He was already on good terms with the Imam of Muscat, and it would be to his advantage to possess a permanent trading establishment on the

Iranian side. A military alliance would hardly have been practical, but if the Vakil could be induced to maintain pressure on the East India Company, Haydar

‘Ali might be able to consolidate his gains in India: for by 1769 he had pushed the British back to the gates of Madras and concluded a not unfavorable peace. 107. Abdul Qadir, 31/34 (Mir Mohannd is described as the chief of the Ka‘b

reas. Francklin, 308. 109. GM, 169-70; Abdul Qadir, 1-2. The same envoy was again sent to Iran (and Istanbul) in 1786. 110. FR XVII, 1069.

Trade and Foretgn Relattons 271 Qazvini asserts that the Vakil once sent troops to assist Haydar ‘Ali against the British, 124 but if Iranian troops did join his army it would probably be as private mercenaries only. Most likely the chief motive of these embassies was to attempt to bring about an end to the state of war that was dragging on between Iran and Oman, to the detriment of his trade with both, and had at that very moment reached a peak with

the Imam's expedition to relieve beleaguered Basra. It is perhaps significant that the embassy of 1774 came immediately after the abortive preparations made by Zaki Khan to invade Oman (10.6), and a third embassy arrived in the summer of 1775, while the Imam's fleet was preparing to attempt the relief of Basra (11.7). This mission stayed three months and was distinguished by another envoy of Iranian origin, 'Ali Khan, and by gifts of a dancing elephant and of jewelry (which according to Qazvini the Vakil ordered to be broken up and sold) M2 Evidently

the attempt to mediate, if such it was, proved unsuccessful, for the Omani fleet at Basra was forced to retire after quite heavy fighting, and desultory hostilities seem to have continued at least until the Vakil's death (10.5). Whether Haydar 'Ali's subjects gained extra privileges at Bandar ‘Abbas is not recorded. Indian merchants at Shiraz, however, already had their own quarter and caravanserai in 1765, 145 As noted, Indians played a considerable role in all theaters of Iranian commerce, not only as merchants but as sailors, brokers, bankers, and agents for both Iranian and European merchants. Besides being, for the most part, Muslims, they enjoyed the advantages of an established network of friends and relatives wherever their business took them, and of not being permanently identified with a particular nation or company. Trade with India accounted for perhaps 30 per cent of the value of the commerce of western Iran (15.1), but the volume of overall trade to, from, in, and through Iran in which Indians had a hand was undoubtedly much greater than could be indicated by such a restricted estimate.

111. Qazvini, 144a; cf. Abdul Qadir, 13-15; Amin, 101. 112. Qazvini, 144a; GM, 205; FR XVII, 1089 (31 July 1775); Miles, 273. 113. Niebuhr, Retse, 120.

16 The Vakil at Home

16.1 DEFENSE AND URBAN RENEWAL

A ruler's greatness is traditionally measured by his buildings. Posterity aside, it is the first duty of a dynast to adopt and embellish a capital city, not only as a strategic and administrative base, but as a psychological weapon in his struggle for continuing popular support and international prestige; for a prosperous and handsome metropolis is visible evidence of a strong and benevolent government.

The capital is the reflection of the fortunes of a dynasty: during the troubled infancy of the Safavid state, its headquarters shifted successively from Tabriz tc Qazvin and ultimately to Isfahan, where Shah 'Abbas was at last able to give expression to his firmly established monarchy in the magnificent monuments that have made that city famous. Thus Karim Khan, when after years of ceaseless advance and retreat from city to city he entered Shiraz in the summer of 1179/1765 as undisputed ruler of most of Iran, could now rebuild his adopted city as the chosen cen-

ter of his realm. His first consideration was defense. Since the Afghan invasion, Shiraz and its environs had been overrun several times, notably in 1724, after withstanding an Afghan siege for nine months, and in 1744, when Nader Shah crushed the revolt of Mohammad Taqi Khan Shirazi, sacking the town and building two towers of heads .+ At that time Shiraz had had no proper wall; the outermost houses standing side by

side did duty for a rampart.” Having himself undergone two sieges here (4.1, 4.6), the Vakil had acquired a practical idea of how best to improve the defenses of the sprawling and poorly walled city. He started by reducing the perimeter to more manageable proportions and rebuilding the walls: the previous total of seventeen to nineteen quarters within a perimeter of 1.5 farsakhs (seven miles) was cut down by the demolition of older, outlying buildings and the amalgamation of several quarters to a dozen new quarters inside a perimeter of only one farsakh; the number of gates was reduced from the former nine or even twelve to six,” namely, the darvaza-ye Esfahan, Sa' di, Qassab-khana (slaughterhouse), Shah-da'i, Kazarun, and Bagh-e Shah. The new perimeter was marked by an impressive wall, described admiringly by Francklin, who

1. See Lockhart, Safavi Dynasty, 203; Nadir Shah, 242.

2. Niebuhr, Arabten, 302. _ 3. Fasa'i I, 216; Forsat ol-Dawla, 432-33; Mehraz, 91; Binning, 266-69. The

higher figure in each case is given by Fasa'l.

272

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Fig, 3. Plan of Shiraz.

274 Iran under Karim Khan Saw it in Ja'far Khan's time: it extended for one farsakh and fifty paces, was 25 feet high and 10 feet thick with 80 round towers at intervals of eighty paces, and was further defended by a ditch 20 feet wide and 50 feet deep.* This immense task was begun in the spring of 1180/1767, and by dint of unin-

terrupted shift work was completed in just over a year.” Nami tells enthusiastically how the wall gradually grew as old buildings and the remnants of former ramparts were demolished where necessary, how the gates were flanked by twin towers and covered each by a further tower or redoubt built of red marble blocks (sanghaye la'lt-rokham) and sited a bowshot away from the gate. The labor force was correspondingly huge: twelve thousand men were collected from the various provinces and were put to work throughout the spring and summer, retiring home for the

winter, to return next spring and complete the contract. The laborers and craftsmen were all paid from the royal treasury (14.3) and were accompanied by musicians on the site to make the work go with a swing.° Having secured the defenses, the Vakil invited his chief kinsmen and officers, such as Sadeq, Shaykh ‘Ali, and Nazar 'Ali Khan, to build their own residences in the capital, and new houses were soon springing up all over the town.’ Karim Khan himself set the example with his citadel and palace complex, sited in

the northern part of Shiraz. The Arg itself, which for the greater part stands today as firm as ever, is a square building of baked brick, with a round tower at each corner and a ditch of the same dimensions as that of the city wall. The construction took two years (1180-81/1767-68). With impregnability went luxury: the best architects, masons, tilers, painters, and other craftsmen were brought in from the provinces until (according to Nami) they outnumbered the populace. The choice of materials was likewise eclectic--marble and other stone was brought from the quarries of Shiraz, Yazd, and even Tabriz. Only fragments remain of the original colorful frescoes, murals, tilework, and carved marble, but the layout of the interior remains almost intact. A square courtyard with gardens and a longitudinal pool is surrounded on three sides by two stories of apartments and openfronted summer rooms, each side with a central taZar flanked by tall columns; the Southeastern side contains the main gatehouse and entrance from what used to be the central square. °

4. Francklin, 51-54; Rostam, 412.

5. GM, 156-57. 6. TGG, 154-55; Rostam, 414. 7. GM, 157; Niebuhr, Reise, 114; Malcolm, 147. An example of such a building is the khana-ye Zaki Khan, described by P. Varjavand in Bar-rastha-ye Tarikht, TX, No. 2, 79-94. 8. TGG, 156-58; GM 157; Rostam, 412; Francklin, 55; see Lerner, 235-36, and

fig. 6. In recent years this served as the mmicipal prison but is now being reI am indebted to Judith Lerner of the Asia Institute of the Pahlavi University for

stored together with the other monuments of the central complex described below.

enabling me to visit the interior of the Arg and the Hammam-e Vakil during restoration.

The Vakil at Home 275 On the northeastern side of this maydan lies Karim Khan's audience hall (divankhana), a rectangular building set behind a garden once lined with trees, canals, and fountains; it is distinguished by a gabled roof and originally had a large open talar (Since covered with a wooden lattice) flanked by two monolithic marble columns (removed by Agha Mohammad Khan in 1792).” This building is not

described specifically by the chroniclers, but may be assumed to have been built at about the same time as the Arg and to have been as richly adorned. South of this was the naqqara-khana, the fanfare gallery from which the Khan's trumpets and drums would sound at sunrise and sunset, and the artillery park. 1° The remainder of the square (which came to be called the Maydan-e Shah) was bounded by the Vakil's bazaar, mosque, bathhouse, and mausoleum (see 16.2). 16.2 CIVIC ARCHITECTURE AND AMENITIES

A lasting contribution to the commercial welfare of Shiraz was Karim Khan's bazaar and caravanserais, which were built about the same time as the Arg. Scott Waring, who saw Shiraz soon after the devastation wrought by Agha Mohammad Khan and was in

general disappointed with the city, nevertheless lauded the Bazar-e Vakil:

The Vakeel's bazar is a most noble work; it is built of brick, arched, and covered in like Exeter Change. It probably extends half a mile, and is, I should suppose, fifty feet wide. They have a story, that Kureem Khan riding through it soon after the work was completed, saw a nail driven into the wall, and detecting the offender, caused his head to be struck off. It has a good appearance at night, when it is lighted

up.

Karim Khan's bazaar is still functioning much as ever, except for a portion demolished by an earthquake about 1812 and a small part that had to be sacrificed When the modern Khiaban-e Karim Khan-e Zand was constructed across the town. Orig-

inally, there were also fountains at the intersections, and beneath the dome of the principal intersection was an enclosed platform over a cistern, Serving as a meeting place for the city's merchants. 14 Scott Waring continues his praise with one of the many anecdotes that have spun themselves around Karim Khan's rule in Shiraz:

It 1s said that the stone above the door was so weighy, that it was found impossible to raise it, when the Vakeel, assisting the workmen, made them exert themselves so much, that they raised it immediately.

Sheeraz is full of such kind of stories of the Vakeel, who is the only prince I never heard abused.

J. See Lerner, 236-40, for travelers' descriptions. This building was for-

merly used as the telegraph office, but is now being restored. 10. Francklin, 55-57. li. Waring, 32-33; cf. Kinneir, 62; Bradley-Birt, 134-35. 12. Monteith, ''Notes on the Routes," 118; Rostam 345; Lerner, 230-31. A detailed description of the Vakil's bazaar is given by Eslami, 17-22.

276 Iran under Karim Khar The caravanserai, aS a combination of inn, warehouse, and commercial office, was a necessary complement to the bazaar. Karim built several in Shiraz, notably the Karvansaray-e Fil to the east of his mosque, that of the Gomrok, or customs house, the Rawghani, just inside the Isfahan Gate, and the Karvansaray-e Mir Hamza

outside the Isfahan Gate, to the west of the shrine of the same name. He is also credited with at least two bathhouses: the marble-columned Hammam-e Vakil, of which Forsat-e Shirazi claims, "Without exaggeration, its like has never been seen, and never will be, throughout Iran,""*4 was built facing the Maydan-e Shah next to the Mosque, and another, the Hammam-e Bagerabad, has since been demolished and some of its marble blocks used in the reconstruction of Hafez' tomb. Perhaps the best known of Karim's monuments is his mosque, the Masjed-e

Vakil, adjoining the bazaar. Together with most of the gardens and the bazaar, this was built later than the more immediately necessary walls and citadel; the structure was completed about 1187/1773, though the tile work and other decoration was never finished. It occupies the site of two earlier mosques, no trace of which remains. It is an impressively solid building of square plan, measuring 100 meters on each side, with a large cistern in the courtyard dominated by two large ayvans. Notable features are the southwestern prayer hall (shabestan) with its forty-eight spirally fluted monolithic columns and the great monolithic marble menbar of fourteen steps that is said to have been transported by ox and mule half the length of Iran from Maragha.+° Most of the original tile work of the mosque has since been replaced. Near his mosque, according to Francklin, the Vakil “had laid the foundations for a range of very handsome buildings, which he designed to have been occupied by mullahs, dervishes and other religious men," but this work, like so much else, had lapsed on Karim Khan's death, 1© A takya for the shrine of Shah Mir Hamza, where Karim's son Rahim Khan was buried, is also the work of the vaki1.?7 He also repaired the dilapidated Masjed-e Naw, 28

Elsewhere, Karim's homage to the saints and poets of his city's past took the form of renovation and extension of their shrines. The garden of the Seven Graves and that of the Forty Graves (Haft Tanan and Chehel Tanan), set on the northeastern slopes of the hills, had both suffered from the ravages of time and marauding armies; the former he provided with an ayvan and two monolithic columns

some fifteen feet high, and the latter he enclosed with a brick-and-plaster wall. On being informed that the tombstone of his illustrious predecessor, the Mozaffarid Shah Shoja', had been stolen, he had it replaced by a marble block engraved 13. See Eslami, 22-27. 14. Asar ol-°Ajan, 501; cf. Rostam, 413; Lerner, 233.

1S. GM, 203-4; Rostam, 413; Mehraz, 148-49; Lerner, 232-33.

16. Francklin, 63. 17. GM, 205; Rostam, 413; cf. Francklin, 105-6; Fraser, An Historical...

Account, 265.

18. Rostam, 335.

The Vaktl at Home 277 with an inscription in Arabic, which still lies near the Haft Tanan. He also gave orders for the construction of a commemorative bog'a nearby, but the confusion that followed his death intervened to prevent their being carried out 1 The tomb of Shah Shoja's celebrated encomiast, Hafez, which had first been raised by the Mughal Emperor Babur in 1452, was likewise in a sorry state when Karim came to Shiraz. In 1772 he donated a sum of money for its enlargement; with

this was planted the beautiful garden of cypress and orange trees that delights the eye today, and a stout wall was built to enclose it. The precinct was divided into a front area, the Naranjestan, and a back, the Gurestan, by the erection of two vaults with an ayvan between. Over the grave itself was laid a marble block inscribed with quotations from the poet's works. The tomb buildings and this block were later destroyed and rebuilt more than once, the last time during the reign of Reza Shah. The four central pillars of the colonnade, however, are still those of Karim Khan. 7?

The resting place of Shaykh Sa'di was seen in 1765 by Niebuhr, who noted

sadly: ‘This building is very dilapidated, and will likely collapse unless some rich Mohammedan takes pity on it and has it repaired."' His wish was fulfilled a few years later, when Karim placed over the grave a brick and plaster edifice and enclosed the actual tombstone in an iron railing. *} Hafez's beloved Ruknabad stream, which springs to the northeast of the town

not far from the Sa'diya and used to flow into the plain of the Mosalla bu1lt by the Buwayhid Prince Rokn ol-Dawla, is now blocked and disused. At the time of Karim Khan it was still flowing strong, and the Vakil, after consulting experts, ordered an aqueduct (shotor-golu) to be constructed so as to bring the waters of

the spring into the town as far as the palace, at the same time avoiding the riverbed and negotiating both the town walls and ditch and the similar defenses of the Arg. This unusual feat of engineering was completed at great expense; “7 unfortunately it has not survived. The Rud-e Khoshk, the seasonal river that skirts the northeastern edge of Shiraz, is in its present form the work of the Vakil: to lessen the danger of flooding, he had the bed excavated and reinforced with stone banks. “> Others of his waterworks include two underground reservoirs (ab-

anbar) near the old gun park by the Arg, which were in use up to the installatim of a piped water supply. “4 During the period Sadeq Khan was governor of the cari-

tal (perhaps even before 1765), he was instructed to have all the bazaar alleys 19. GM, 205. The tombstone of Shah Shoja- has since been enclosed and sheltered by a futuristic concrete umbrella. 604 20. GM, 204; Donboli, Tajreba I, 129; cf. Arberry, Shiraz, 160; Porter I, "21. Niebuhr, Reise, 167; Rostam, 413; Mehraz, 230; Porter I, 696-97. This arvangmenet was replaced in 1952 by the present mausoleum designed by André -22. TGG, 159-60; Rostam, 412.

23. Sami, Shtraz, 29; Emdad, 37. 24. Rostam, 413; Emdad, 209.

278 Iran under Karim Khan and other residential streets paved, with a central drainage channel ruming into wells sunk forty paces apart and covered with a stone grid.?> The various lovely gardens that are for many the chief attraction of Shiraz were largely new creations or extensions of existing plots. Besides those of the palace, shrines, and mausoleums mentioned above, there was the Bagh-e Nazar (surviving, though reduced in size) with its octagonal pavillion (the so-called Kolah-e Farangi), where the Vakil was originally buried. Other gardens that Karim Khan had planted outside the city include the Bagh-e Jahan-noma about a mile to the north, where in 1185/1771-72 he enclosed a field to grow 300 man of wheat; in the Same place he built another kolah-e farangi and planted four rows of poplars, which were admired by the author of the Farsnama some 120 years later. To the north of this, at a place now called Jawnoma, he built another, smaller walled garden watered by the Roknabad spring. 7° Such was in brief the scope of Karim Khan's replanning, renovation, and improvement of Shiraz. One outstanding feature of the Vakil's buildings remarked by most observers is the firmness of the foundations and masonry. The Zand ruler's monuments have stood the test of four successive earthquakes~’ and of the destructive malice of Agha Mohammad Khan when he sacked the town in 1206/1792. There is

an oft-repeated tale that the spiteful eunuch found that his demolition teams could make no impression on the city walls with mere picks and crowbars and he was

forced to call in stonemasons to cut up the blocks with their special tools. The conqueror did, however, manage to take back to Tehran the two monolithic pillars from the divankhana, which Curzon noted in the Qajar throne room .78 If the Vakil's monuments lack the brazen opulence of Shah 'Abbas' Royal Square at Isfahan, they blend with dignity and quiet good taste into the back-

ground of rare natural beauty that is Shiraz's happy lot. While the oasis of Isfahan stands out on a featureless semidesert plain, Shiraz lies at 5,000 feet against a backdrop of rugged green hills. From the architectural viewpoint, one fortunate feature of Shiraz is that the town is aligned on a roughly northeast to southwest axis, that is, in conformity with the gebla,*” with the result that the most striking edifices--the mosques--are in line with the main streets, the bazaars and other principal buildings. All Karim Khan's buildings conform to and emphasize this harmony of plan.

25. Rostam, 335; Donboli, Zajreba I, 129. 26. Kinneir, 63; Nava'i, Karim Khan-e Zand, 306-8. 27. Brydges, cviii; Bradley-Birt, 128; Hovhanyants, 311. The earthquakes are variously dated 1789, 1812, 1853, and 1855. 28. G. N. Curzon I, 313; cf. Kinneir, 63; Bradley-Birt, 134; Zoka, 88. The marble throne also identified by Curzon as booty from Shiraz was in fact made twenty years later; the legendary cannon (the tup-e morvarid) then parked in the Royal Square at Tehran, which was popularly held to have been cast at Shiraz by Karim Khan, was likewise cast much later, in 1233/1817-18, at Isfahan (see Zoka, 38-39, 50 note 2). 29. The gebZa at Shiraz is 56°46' west of south; cf. Mehraz, 91.

The Vakil at Home 279 16.3 CAMP AND COURT

Compared with the elaborate superstructure of rank and ritual that distinguished the Safavid court, the Vakil's menage at Shiraz was smaller, simpler, and attuned more to practical administrative and military needs than to the sumptuous ostentations of a Great Sophy. Certainly Safavid court terminology is liberally sprinkled over the standard hyperbole in the contemporary chronicles; but this stems from the historians' obligation to portray the ruler in an aura of conventional magnificence, regardless of how the standards of an earlier age of opulence might have changed. Nader Shah had already shaken the effete structure of the late Safavid court into a working militaristic machine--working, admittedly, for its own perpetuation and aggrandizement--but a machine nevertheless which would work again if enough parts were salvaged by a competent man trained under Nader. Karim Khan, brought up in the same frontier battleground of Darra Gaz as Nader himself and educated on campaign with the conqueror, was thus able to appreciate and use

the military basis of political power he inherited in part from Nader, and by his humanity to impart to it a greater rationality and stability. This tendency is reflected in the constitution of Karim's standing army of Fars during the latter years of his reign.>° This force was maintained at a theoretical 45,000 men. The largest element, over half the total, comprised the 24,000 men from the Lur and Lak tribes that had provided Karim's original manpower in his rise to dominance over the region around Hamadan, Kermanshah, and Borujerd --chiefly the Zand, Zangana, Kalhor, Vand, and Fayli Lurs; these would comprise both cavalry and infantry. The 12,000 troops designated as 'Eraqi were presumably

the musketeers and other largely nontribal infantry units recruited from the peasantry at urban centers such as Qom, Kashan, Isfahan, Qomeshah, Abada, and Yazd; these corresponded to the Tofangeht units, which under Shah 'Abbas had likewise

numbered 12,000, >2 Fars, despite its rise to the status of metropolitan province, provided only 6,000 troops; this figure presumably included the contingents from dependencies such as Lar, Dashtestan, and Khuzestan. The smallest regional contingent to be classified separately was that of the Bakhtyari at 3,000 men. These ideal figures probably represented neither the real number of troops quartered in Fars nor those actually ready for service. The army led by Amir Guna Khan against Khurmuj and Bandar Rig in 1765 supposedly comprised 4,000 horse and

6,000 foot; but Niebuhr was told confidentially by a Georgian officer that only 1,100 and 500, respectively, were in fact fit for service, and the Danish traveler further notes that a yuzbashi more often had nearer 50-60 men than the ideal 100° It would therefore seem justifiable to assume, on a still generous estimate, that rather less than 20,000 of this standing army existed other than on paper and that

30. Fasa'i I, 219; Partaw-Bayza'i, 58-59; Ansari, 229. 31. Lockhart, "The Persian Army," 93. 32. Niebuhr, Retse, 102, 103.

280 Iran under Karim Khan no more than half of this could have been put into the field at short notice. Even this exceeds the eyewitness estimates from Shiraz that reached Russian offiCials at Rasht in the late 1760s: these claim that Karim Khan had disbanded his army, retaining only 4,000 men at Shiraz and a few chosen strongholds, backed by tribal and peasant contingents. >» The organization of this force, particularly of the units permanently at-

tached to the court, was theoretically on traditional Safavid lines, though reflecting differences that had in the main developed under Nader Shah. *4

The elite Safavid quilar (lit.: slaves)--mounted musketeers originally recruited like the Turkish janissaries chiefly from among Georgians and other Christian peoples for the shah's personal service, and in Shah 'Abbas's time numbering 12,000--had survived vestigially in the Vakil's personal bodyguard, the gholaman. Numbering 1,400 in all, these comprised 1,200 Lurs armed with flintlocks (chakhmagq; most other musketeers still had only the matchlock) and hence known as the ghelmane chakhmaqt and 200 miscellaneous Kurds, Georgians, and others under the command of 'Ali Beg Shaqaqi, ‘Ali Khan Kord-e Qarachurlu, and Lotf 'Ali Khan Cherkes, all three of them renowned marksmen. Georgian officers also served in field units of

the Zand army, but it is unlikely that any complete contingent still existed (13.4).

The other court troops, in approximate order of decreasing military and increasing menial duties, were the 1,000 yasavolan (mounted escorts and attendants whose duties included crowd control and other police work); their chief officers were 'Ali Morad Khan Zand, 'Askar Khan Rashti, and Mirza Mohammad Khan Qajar

Develu; 1,000 nasaqchtan (bodyguard-cum-police, similar to the yasavolan); 700 jarchtan (heralds or messengers), each with a bejewelled and enamelled plume (teZ)

as insignia of office, 300 each of rtkayan and shateran (couriers or outriders); and 1,000 farrashan, or general ushers and orderlies. The jazayerchian or keshikehian (harquebusiers) and the qurehtan (cuirassiers) seem to have disappeared as elite units, though the former are frequently mentioned by the chroniclers as field troops together with the tofangehtan.>” The artillery, a psychological weapon at best, is represented in this list only by 700 zanburakchian, though the Vakil's tupcht-basht, Mohammad Beg Gorgi, presumably had his own troops and a few heavier guns . °°

The officers of this force, we are told, from commander-in-chief down to dah-basht (in command of ten men) numbered 6,000. The nomenclature of ranks reflected basically the Turkish decimal terminology as inherited from the Qizilbash tribes, some terms having remained Turkish but others appearing in part-Persian 33. Arunova and Ashrafyan, "Novye Materialy," 111 note 8. 34. The following summary is based on Fasa'i and Partaw-Bayza'i. 35. Lockhart, ''The Persian Army," 92-94, 96 note; TM, 118, 124.

36. Cf. Niebuhr, Retse, 118. Ferriéres de Sauveboeuf (58) describes the Iranian artillery of the time as "pl&t6t un objet de parade que de destruction."

The Vaktl at Home 281 translation: thus we have minbasht and yuzbasht, but pansad-basht, panjah-basht and dah-basht.>! the Lak and Lur contingents with their families represented an enormous increase in the population of Shiraz and Fars at large. Several thousand families are Said to have had town houses in the capital, and of these 8,000 individuals were reputedly in attendance when the Vakil gave full court (Lar-e ' amm) 8 The continued political as well as military dominance of Karim's early allies can also be seen in the position at court of men such as ‘Abdollah Beg Kalhor and Haydar Qoli Khan Zangana, who were sent as ambassadors to Istanbul and Baghdad (15.3). Karim Khan invariably entrusted the field command of all major operations to a Zand kinsman or a proved soldier from among his tribal allies (‘Ali Khan Shahiseven, Amir Guna Khan Afshar); politicians and courtiers were not encouraged to try out military aspirations. Thus in the Zohab campaign (12.2) Mirza Mohammad Ja'far Khorasani was sent to negotiate, backed by Nazar ‘Ali Khan Zand with an army. Only once did the Vakil indulge a courtier's plea to command a campaign-that of Taqi Khan Bafqi against Kerman (8.2)--and he seems to have regarded this

fiasco as a joke from the outset. This shrewd separation of court and camp contrasts with later Safavid and mid-Qajar practice, as deplored by European observers: "Nothing can be better than the Persian private soldier, or worse than the officers . .. they are generally taken from the worst class of the menial servants of the ministers and people about court 1" Although his chief strength lay in the tribal cavalry, the Zand ruler did not neglect the tofangchis, the infantry backbone of his army. Battles might be won by a spirited saber charge from the volatile tribesman, but it was the stolid ranks of musketeers, largely conscripts officered by mercenaries, that made it possible. The lengths Karim Khan went to in order to retain his infantry levies from Persian Iraq and Dashtestan--at the risk of alienating his own tribesmen (3.2) and driving the Dashtestanis to mutiny (4.1)--illustrates his appreciation of their importance. The more frivolous aspects of court life were, so far as can be judged, as much in evidence as ever, but with the accent on rougher and more martial entertainments and on active participation in his by the Vakil's kinsmen and fellow tribesmen. The lions, tigers, and elephants presented by foreign envoys were, according to Rostam al-Hokama', employed in gladiatorial combats such as that in Which 'Ali Mohammad Khan Zand acquired his nickname of Shir-Kosh (12.7, note 50).

The elephants reputedly had their trunks torn apart by stalwarts of the Zand tribe, who would also reshape horseshoes and even zanburaks with their bare hands to entertain foreign diplomats (chap. 15, note 96). Jarid-bazt was a popular pastime at the Zand court. Scott Waring describes this typical steppe sport as 37. Niebuhr, Retse, 103. 38. Partaw-Bayza'i, 59; Fasa'i I, 219, has 7000. 39. Monteith, "Notes on the Routes," 118.

282 Iran under Karim Khan "throwing a dart three cubits long at a horseman when they are at full gallop. The person at whom it is thrown either catches it in his hand, or throwing himself under the horse's belly, allows it to fly over him. . . the jureed comes with sufficient force to break an arm." One exponent could repeatedly spear an orange from a man's head at full gallop. Rostam also recounts with satisfaction the fate of 'Omar Aqa, a skilled jarid-baz who accompanied an Ottoman embassy to

Shiraz: his javelin (blunted for practice) broke the bones of several Zand challengers and their mounts before Kalb ‘Ali Khan, raising the Shi'i battle cry "ya 'Ait,"" hurled his dart as the Turk passed him crouching low over the saddle, so that it "shot straight into his anus and out of his navel . . . and the famous L'Omar Aqa] tumbled into the dust of destruction and joined the ranks of the

[first] three caliphs." Wrestlers, tumblers, and court jesters (moqalled, lutibasht) were also a feature of the Vakil's moments of public relaxation.“ 16.4 CIVIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

To a great extent the administration and other amenities of Shiraz under Zand rule must have been typical of most other cities at that time; however, since there are instances of Karim Khan's having added to or modified existing arrangements, and

a capital by its very nature is likely to show marked differences from provincial towns, it is more prudent to treat Shiraz as a special case. The Vakil's policy of attracting merchants and artisans, encouraging his officers and their dependents to set up residence in Shiraz and settling many of the families of his tribal army in and around the capital, undoubtedly increased its population considerably (14.4). His reconstruction of the city wall, as also the presence of his army in Fars, afforded safety from external enemies. Its growth as the center of government required that internal order and security be at least as firmly guaranteed. Niebuhr saw this at work at the outset of the Vakil's reign in Shiraz, and his observations tally closely with those of Francklin, who stayed in the city twenty years later under Ja'far Khan. The city gates were well guarded at all times, and although anyone was admitted, strangers were not allowed out without a pass. Women were not normally allowed out at all, as it was feared the chador might be concealing an escaped prisoner.” the gates were closed at sunset and the keys deposited with the governor until the next morning. Two warning drumrolls were beaten at 8:00 and 9:00 P.M. and at the third, about 10:30 P.M., a universal curfew came into force. Those apprehended out of doors by the night watch were hauled before the darugha, and if unable to give a good account of themselves would be liable to a fine or the bastinado. “4

40. Waring, 50; cf. Ives, 272.

41, Rostam, 367-69. 42. Rostam, 410. 43. Niebuhr, Retse, 114.

44, Francklin, 130.

The Vaktl at Home 283 The darugha and his men were responsible in Shiraz, as in other cities, for public order, civic security, and other duties today performed by the urban police force; he was also the official (at least in Shiraz) who supervized retail prices, contracts, Weights and measures, and the like in the bazaar, having as his subordinate in this the mohtaseb."” The duties of the darugha of Isfahan during late Safavid times were very Similar; he was also the judge in a civil small claims court (involving sums of less than 12 tumans). If a prisoner of the darugha died, the case was investigated by the. divan-begt, the officer responsible for court security, who in some matters apparently acted as metropolitan police chief.” The Vakil's divan-begi was his eldest son, Abu'l-Fath Khan. “7 Urban security was remarkably well maintained under Karim Khan: "During his whole reign, I have been informed by several natives of Shirauz, that by his excellent police and management there was not a single tumult or riot productive of bloodshed. '"48 The city was divided by the Vakil's reconstruction into twelve clearly differentiated wards (mahalla), each of which had as spokesman and unpaid superintendent a kadkhoda. His duties included settling disputes between neighbors, reporting special circumstances of making other representations to the governor, and acquainting himself with the occupations and resources of the inhabitants of his

ward as an aid to tax collection, quartering of troops, and the like.” Before the Vakil's return to Shiraz in 1765, Sadeq had built or otherwise acquired many houses for the army and hostages expected; the surplus number were billeted on Shiraz residents and forbidden to buy, sublet, or change their quarters. °7 The chief religious dignitary was the Shaykh ol-Eslam, who as the chief interpreter and implementer of the shar' law was considered to be the chief of the judiciary, appointed directly by the monarch through the Vaki1.>2 Nevertheless, his jurisdiction was strictly limited to religious matters, which included divorce and other civil proceedings of a minor nature; the chief civil and criminal judge was the qazt, who imposed on-the-spot punishments such as the loss of nose or ears for common theft, or disembowelment and exposure on the gibbet for highway robbery. >” Niebuhr witnessed one result of such summary justice, two butchers nailed by the ears to a post for the afternoon as a punishment for selling bad meat.>> Security in the metropolitan province and its dependencies was maintained by equally summary punishments, which because they were inflicted on a larger scale sometimes seem arbitrary and excessive. The extirpation of the Liravi Lurs of the Kuhgiluya (7.4) is a case in point. The Vakil's justice, especially when executed

45. Ibid., 142; Waring, 64-65; Rostam, 308. 46. DM, 428-29; cf. TM, 48, 82-83, 90, 113, 149. 47. Rostam, 434. 48. Waring, 302.

49. Ibid., 64.

50. Rostam, 339.

51. Cf. Algar, 40.

52. Francklin, 131-32. 53. Niebuhr, Retse, 116.

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Be GP RE EE i a SAE TR ee See a ee ite Bote satin cacy dtc wat emg iba iat cuir k nit Manatee oahtitges engi Tae ee lay aria haha agar eg sue saig Cae hea ORE + bal male” 4 oe “ Pl ° ER RO Pac katt l ania Ee Seca el Baan ee eG RE a aaa an ig oe i ee ee en a mie. He also had his cousin Taher Khan Zand severely beaten for fornicating with the nymphomaniac wife of the head porter of the palace. /° 72. Malcolm, 150-51; Fraser, An Historical . . . Account, 263-64; ModarresGilani, 431. 73. Esfahani, 3b-4a; RSN IX, 124; compare the slightly different version of

Nava'i, Karim Khan-e Zand, 286-87.

74. Rostam, 322; Donboli, Tajreba I, 132-33; II, 48; SP 97/53 (1777), 95a (a report from a Carmelite friar who served as Karim Khan's physician during 1775-

76); cf. Fasa'i I, 219; Partaw-Bayza'i, 61; Bahar, 328. 75. Qazvini, 146a-b.

76. Rostam, 416-419; Nava'i, Karim Khan-e Zand, 254-56.

The Vakil at Home 29] In his earlier years, however, he is alleged to have abducted girls for his nocturnal amusement; on his return to Isfahan after his arduous campaigns in Azerbaijan, he is said by Rostam to have gotten drunk every night and slept each time with a suitable girl kidnapped by procurers, dismissing her the next day with a robe of honor. However, a deputation of ulema made him repent and cease this practice. This is perhaps the period during which the author of the Fava'ed olSafaviya claims that Karim abducted and deflowered a thousand high-born virgins.’’ Jewish girls were also alleged to have been carried off to the Vakil's harem. /® Reports likewise at odds with the benevolent and efficient image of Karim Khan are purveyed by the Russian traveler Gnelin, who was in Mazandaran and Gilan during the 1770s. Local rumor, spiced with Qajar hatreds and probably fostered by the nearly independent Hedayatollah Khan of Rasht, portrayed the Vakil as a drunk-

en, licentious, and avaricious tyrant, 'who cares very little for the well being of his subjects," and who kept to his palace-fortress in fear of rebellion.” Russian consular reports from 1768 mention disturbances in Astarabad and Gilan,

which they attribute to increased taxation and connivance at the tyranny of officials on the part of Karim Khan, who to all intents and purposes had withdrawn from affairs of state. This could, of course, refer to the troubles during the revolt of Hosayn Qoli Khan Qajar and the repressive campaigns of Zaki and 'Ali

Morad Khan (9.3-6). The same sources, however, refer to riots in Shiraz itself, on which an eyewitness comments: ''The presence of the ruler Karim Khan in Shiraz, without an army and without in any way supervising the country's affairs, but caring only for the extortion of heavy taxes, has aroused contempt and criticism from great and small alike and has opened the way to chaos. 1189 The charge that Karim Khan did not discipline his officials, but rather con-

nived at their extortion, is substantiated by 'Abd ol-Razzaq Beg. 2 This directly contradicts most of our information regarding his administrative policy (14.3)-which admittedly draws largely on one somewhat dubious source, the Rostam ol-

Tavartkh. Donboli's context, however, makes it clear that he has in mind the outlying provinces, implying that the Vakil's reputation for just government stretched farther than his reach in practice. Yet another voice from Shiraz was raised in dissent. "One year before his death,"' asserts the Kalantar, "the Vakil's character underwent a change, and he committed several acts which were unworthy of him and so far unprecedented." Amongst these was the siege and occupation of Basra, wasteful of men and money. And when the keeper of the granaries whom he had recently appointed embezzled a

quantity of his trust, the Vakil made up this loss out of the pockets of the 77. Qazvini, 143b; Rostam, 332.

78. Levi, 489.

79. Gmélin, 399-400. 80. Arunova and Ashrafyan, 'Novye Materialy,'' 113, notes 13-15; the eyewit-

ness is not identified. 81. Donboli, fajreba II, 49.

292 Iran under Karim Khan landlords. °? No doubt the contributions for the Basran war effort also bore most heavily upon this class, of whom Mirza Mohammad was by his own admission a leading

member; it is therefore difficult to treat his complaint as representative of the views of the populace at large. Yet having witnessed the sometimes arbitrary blindings and executions contem-

porary with the Vakil's illness in the early 1760s, we must not overlook the possibility that Karim's declining health, with the impairment of his wonted activities and perhaps increased consumption of alcohol and opium to compensate, may again

have blunted his judgment and sharpened his temper. There is a close precedent in Nader Shah, whose constipation and liver troubles may well have contributed to the unbalanced state of mind in which he perpetrated the barbarities of his last year of life. °5 If there is any basis for this analogy, then Karim may be counted extremely fortunate to have died before he reached the stage attained by his prede-

cessor in power. But certain it is that whatever his lapses then or earlier, these were lost to memory in the overwhelming majority of his good acts. Even the Kalantar, whose poison pen writes off so many of his contemporaries, declines to drive home his stab at the Vakil and is forced to admit that "his virtues were numbered in thousands, his vices singly."°4 16.7 KARIM KHAN'S ACHIEVEMENTS

Among his descriptions of Karim Khan's characteristics, Rostam ol-Hokama' lists a decalogue for the monarch ,° evidently intended as an appreciation of the Vakil's virtues (and in some cases a reproach of his vices) as much as an abstract prescription for good government. Since these have in the main been demonstrated above, a paraphrase of these commandments with the appropriate references, and some additional comments, might serve as a framework within which to assess Karim Khan's stature. a. The monarch should take an active interest in agriculture and establish grain stores throughout the kingdom (14.6).

b. He should never act selfishly or hastily, but only after consultation and consideration. Karim's rash attack on Azad against the advice of his kinsmen (3.2) and his blinding of Shaykh 'Ali Khan (6.2) conflict with this maxim. The minimal size

and status of his bureaucracy (13.6) would indicate that in general he preferred to make his own decisions with a minimum of consultation or delegation. However, his shrewdness with regard to foreign trade--particularly his measures to stem the

82. Kalantar, 67-68; Fasa'i I, 218.

83. Lockhart, Wadir Shah, 275-76. 84. Kalantar, 68 (''khubi-ye u hazar bud va badi-ye u yak"').

85. Rostam, 326-28 (padshah bayad . ..). This is actually a duodecalogue; I have taken the editorial liberty of suppressing Rostam's first point (concerning the maintenance of an intelligence network) as being difficult to document and of amalgamating the next two points, which are closely related.

The Vaktl at Home 293 drain of specie (15.5)--reveal that he must have had access to, and heeded, sound economic advice.

e. He should be levelheaded and impartial, playing no favorites and tolerating no traitors, even though they be close kin. The Vakil would appear to have promoted few, if any, incompetent favorites and certainly dealt summarily with alleged traitors (6.1-4). An exception on both these counts, however, is Zaki Khan, who, though brutally efficient on the whole, was on at least two occasions censured for cruelty or stupidity (9.5, 10.6), yet was indulged to an unbelievable extent in his revolt against his cousin (6.5-8). d. He should always speak sternly and awe-inspiringly. Karim Khan, happily, was quiet-spoken and enjoyed a joke (16.5). e. He should not be covetous. Personal greed was perhaps the most notably absent of Karim's traits ,°°

as illustrated, inter alia, by the anecdote of the tribal elder and his wealth (14.3). His treasury remained empty by design, most incoming revenue being ploughed back into the country in the form of buildings and amenities, wages and pensions, and internal security. f. He should be thrifty and farsighted, looking after the army (sepah)

and the peasantry (ra'tyat) like a father. This, as his title shows, was regarded by the Vakil as his primary task. Army and peasantry were complementary sources of power and wealth, and Nader Shai

had abused both at great cost: with an increased induction of the peasantry into the army, fewer were left for productive labor, and with increased taxation and requisition, those peasants, artisans, and merchants who were still producing were forced to give up not only their surplus but much of their capital and subsistence. °/ In essence, Karim Khan's formula for economic recovery was simply to use these two arms of the labor force each for its proper purpose (14.2). Thrift in government began at the top. Not only had the more splendid and costly paraphernalia of the court disappeared along with the shah, but the military enterprises undertaken were of a defensive and conservative nature and

thus of greater long-term benefit than Nader's large-scale raids on the treasure Store of India, the proceeds of which remained buried in the vaults of Kalat. In his realistic consolidation of existing frontiers and his economic promotion and architectural embellishment of his chosen capital, Karim may be compared to Shah "Abbas. The punitive campaigns against unruly vassals and less well-advised ventures like the war against Oman or the Basra campaign were admittedly a drain on the exchequer. Also, from evidence presented in the previous section it seems possible that the relative weakness of the central government, however wellintentioned, had encouraged a recrudescence of anarchy in the provinces even

86. Donboli, Tajreba II, 49.

87. Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo, 258-59.

294 Iran under Karim Khan before the Vakil's death. But for a soldier and tribesman to proclaim himself-and be accepted as--vakil-e ra'aya, with all its implications (13.5), speaks volumes in favor of a real measure of success. g. He should suppress crime and maintain security (14.4, 16.4). h. He should be fair to all classes of society and pay each his due, whether sage or simpleton, cleric (13.7) or clown (16.5), Muslim or pagan. t. He should be a model for his subjects and alert to their needs (16.5). gj. He should be easygoing and enjoy himself, though not at the expense of his subjects (16.6) and, after doing a good job, should take time off to worship God.

The implied criticisms here are obvious, if minor. The greatest cause for regret is that the Vakil's experiment, for all its faults, was not allowed to continue, through failure to provide for his succession (12.9). His second son Mohammad Rahim Khan, the only one of the three who might have made a competent ruler,

died at the age of seventeen in 1191/1777, two years before his father, who seems thereafter to have done no more than assume that his eldest son, the weak and debauched Abu'l-Fath, would succeed. °° Within fifteen years of Karim's death, his own successors had nullified by their selfish wrangling almost every benefit he had conferred on the country, and ensured by their inevitable collapse to the Qajars a complete reaction, a return under Agha Mohammad and Fath ‘Ali Shah to the days of absolute despotism. The restoration of a surprising degree of material prosperity and peace of mind to a badly ravaged and disoriented Iran is the principal achievement of Karim's twenty-eight years of rule, particularly of the fourteen years he spent uninterruptedly in Shiraz. Whatever comforts or finer feelings remained for the body and soul of Iran after the decadence under Shah Soltan Hosayn and the ravages of the Afghan invasion seemed to have been trampled into the dust by Nader's armies in their ephemeral foreign conquests. What was needed was functional simplicity in ruler and state, not empty pomp and grandiloquence; realism and domes-

tic order, not imperialistic fantasies; in short, a pruning of the rotting ramifications of fifty years of chaos. This Karim Khan intuitively realized. The hollow stump of the heartland of Nader's empire, Afsharid Khorasan, he left to be preserved as an appendage of the conqueror's eastern empire, now under the rule of Ahmad Shah Dorrani, while aggressively preserving the western frontiers of the new Iran. The Safavid ghost that had for a generation outlived its body, and that Nader had so manifestly failed to exorcise, he quietly absorbed into the machinery of the state and encouraged to fade away as soon as it had largely lost its two hundred fifty years of superstitious prestige. Efficient government was

its own justification, and the respect and affection of all classes of the 88. GM, 205-7; Rostam (334) describes Abu'l-Fath as Karim Khan's deputy

(na'teb-manab).

The Vaktl at Home 295 populace its guarantee. Karim's personality was a rare combination of strength and purpose with sympathy and generosity that for a brief moment in Iran's long history produced a stable government with a genuinely humane outlook.

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> x od =rT Z SOn oco GO adcWw Of -G fan] rj rd Q dng N WY) o~ HH m™ This latter work was to be his gift to posterity, being the only complete and detailed history of Karim's career from beginning to end,

written from a central viewpoint. Basically the work is a consciously literary

"shostwriting'" of the memoirs of Mirza Mohammad Hosayn Hosayni Farahani, who was

Karim's vizier during the latter part of his reign.4 Both in arrangement and literary style it betrays the influence of the great history of Mirza Mahdi Astara-

badi, of whom Nami was an admirer. Less attention than usual is devoted to yearby-year dating; indeed, the Turkish names given for the first five years of Karim Khan's rule are four years out of phase (Stehgan yil began in 1169/1756, not 1165/ 1752, and so on). Occasional recapitulation helps to correlate matter on a geographical and thematic as well as a chronological basis. The matter itself is unfortunately diluted by an excessively florid and verbose style.° Nami's project of completing the history of the Zands up to the reign of his patron was interrupted by his death. Two successive supplements (zayZ) to his history were added by Mirza 'Abd ol-Karim b. 'Ali Reza ol-Sharif Shahavari (the author of the Zinat ol-Tavarikh, see 3g), and Mohammad Reza Shirazi, which are to be found together with some of the half dozen surviving manuscripts of the Gzttgosha. I have used the edition by the late Sa'id Nafisi, to whose preface the reader is referred for further information. ® b. Mirza Mohammad Abu'l-Hasan Ghaffari Kashani, Golshan-e Morad (GM) Nami's younger contemporary was born the third son of Mirza Mo'ezz o1-Din Mohammad

Mostawfi Ghaffari of an eminent Kashan family, who for the first few years of Karim's reign was his governor of that region. / He defended it against the assaults of Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar, and on one occasion was surprised in the

baths by a Qajar soldier and taken prisoner. His son tells in the introduction to his history, with evident regret, how he was forced into a study of painting between the ages of seven and nine, with the aim of preparing him for a safe and lucrative career in the royal studios, whereas his real inclination lay more to-

ward literature. The royal treasurer, Mirza Mohammad Borujerdi, who was friendly with the elder Ghaffari, advised him to encourage his son to follow in his own

footsteps into the world of administration. Thus it was that our chronicler be-

came a court secretary (monsht) and was able to incorporate his experiences and

those of his father in what is, for the period after 1167/1754, the most detailed and accurate of the Zand histories. On Karim Khan's death in 1193/1779, Ghaffari nursed the idea of a Zand chronicle over the intervening four years of chaos until, with the establishment of the Capital at Isfahan under 'Ali Morad Khan in 1197/1783, he found a modicum of security and leisure in which to indulge his project, which he completed in 1210/ 1796. The resulting Golshan-e Morad comprises a preface and two (out of a projected three) magalat, dealing successively with the reigns of Karim Khan, Zaki, Sadeq, and his patron 'Ali Morad Khan, to whom the title elegantly refers. 8 The preface to the work contains a brief summary of Nader's immediate successors and the rivalries for power in western Iran, and the first two sections give a brief account of Karim Khan's rise to power. From 1168/1755 it is 2. GM, 246-47; Azar, under Ajval-e Mo“aserin; Donboli, Tajreba I, 135, Negarestan, 271-72; Beer, 15; H. Hedayati, Tartkh, 38-39, 'Mokhtasari," 24-27; Sadri-Afshar, 159-60. 3. For Nami as a poet, see Bahr o1-“olumi's article in Majalla-ye Daneshkadaye Adabiyat, XXI, No. 1, 25-32. 4, TGG, 210; Mann, "Ueber die Quellen,"' 17-18; Beer, 11-12. 5. Cf. Beer, 11, 15; Mann, "Ueber die Quellen,"’ 18; H. Hedadyati, '"Mokhtasari," 27-29. 6. TGG, editor's introduction; see also Rieu I, 196-97; Hedayati, Tartkh, 31-35, 41-45, "Mokhtasari,"' 29-34, 7. GM, 7, 42-43; see also Zarrabi, 316-19; Naraqi, 153, 155 note. 8. GM, 2-4; Hedayati, Tarikh, 46-47, '"Mokhtasari," 31-35.

Appendix: Survey and Assessment of the Sources 305 considerably more detailed and, as appears from the confirmatory European sources, generally more reliable than Nami's history. However, certain inaccuracies, such as a reference to the mission to Shiraz of East India Company employee Skipp as a Russian embassy (15.5), and a summary treatment and heavy reliance on Nami in Several sections dealing with the end of Karim Khan's reign indicate that Ghaffari was then out of touch with the news as reported officially in Shiraz, perhaps be-

ing at his home in Kashan. In particular the chapters dealing with the siege of Basra are evidently copied almost word for word from the Gzti-gosha. Nevertheless, taken in conjunction with the Mojmal ol-Tavarikh of Golestana, which largely supplies the deficiencies of the period 1750-55, this is on balance a more important

work than that of Nami. In style it is hardly less florid, but with its long sections on contemporary poets, artists, and divines, it displays a much greater appreciation of the social and cultural life of the time. There seem to be only two manuscripts extant--that in the Malik Library, Tehran (no. 4333), made at Kashan in 1210/1796, and the much later copy (1887) of

this manuscript in the British Library (Or. 3592).9 The latter, fully paginated, is the text to which reference is made here. e. Abu'l-Hasan b. Mohammad Amin Golestana, Mojmal ol-Tavarikh (MT)

The last of this group of primarily Zand chroniclers has the best-documented biography of the three. He came of a family of sayyeds who took their name from a

district of Isfahan where they originally lived. The family later moved to the

Kermanshah region. The historian's two maternal uncles gained high rank under

Nader, but later fell into disfavor and fled to India; his paternal uncle, Mirza

Mohammad Taqi, was for a time Nader's governor of Kermanshah and held a variety of other appointments in western Iran. On Nader's death 'Adel Shah appointed him jointly with Amir Khan Tupchi-bashi to command the important bastion and arsenal

of the Kermanshah fortress, but they defected to the rising power of 'Adel's

brother Ebrahim. When Ebrahim's revolt ended in disaster, Mohammad Taqi continued with 'Abd o1-'Ali Khan Mishmast to hold the fortress against Karim Khan until de-

ciding to capitulate just before 'Ali Mardan's arrival with his pretender from Baghdad (2.5-2.8). He subsequently followed the wind of vicissitude over to Azad Khan, who reappointed him as governor of Kermanshah, where he was killed by rebeilious Kurds (3.5). The younger Golestana had been detained as a hostage in Karim Khan's retinue, but slipped away to the shrines of Iraq, where his two younger brothers joined him on from by their uncle's murderers. Late in 1169/1756 allescaping three left forimprisonment India. Although it was begun in exile at Morshedabad more than fifteen years later, in 1195-96/1781-82, 11 his Mojmal ol-Tavartkh-e ba'd-Naderiya contains a large proportion of material relating to events of the late Afsharid and early Zand period of which the author was not only an eyewitness but in which he took an active part (for example, the two occasions when he went to the Vakil's camp to negotiate

on behalf of his uncle; 1.7, 2.7). For the rest, he claims that as no history of

Iran after Nader Shah was then available, he collected data from letters and other documents (khotut-e mardan) and oral traditions, especially from his family. Evidently this is a guarded admission that he copied the last three chapters of Mirza Mahdi's Jahangoshay-e Nadert and interpolated other parts of this work elsewhere in his book and perhaps that he also drew extensively on the reminiscences of Daud Mirza, son of Shah Solayman II, who was in Morshedabad at that time.12 The

baldness and inaccuracy of his narrative after he left Iran is in sharp contrast to the plausible detail of the events he witnessed or had reliable reports of. 9. See Rieu Suppt., 45, 66; Storey, Persian Literature, I, 331-32, Perstdskaya Literatura, 936-37; Hedayati, "Mokhtasari,'' 35. The latter two works incorrectly date the Malik manuscript as 1201. 10. MY, 31, 133, 231, 286, 273, 313, and editor's introduction, dah-shanzdah; Mann, "Ueber die Quellen," 5-8; Storey, Persian Literature, I, 330; Hedayati, Tartkh, 50, 'Mokhtasari,'' 35-39; Sadri-Afshar, 129-30. 11. For the date of composition, see Mann, "Ueber die Quellen," 9, 14; MI, hefdah.

12. Mann, "Ueber die Quellan,"' 9; MI, nuzdah--bist-o-do.

306 Appendix: Survey and Assessment of the Sources His attitude to Karim Khan, though he was on the enemy side, is remarkably fair and free from rancor; like other hostages of the Vakil ('Abd ol-Razzaq Beg Donboli, for one) he accepted the risks of the political game in which he was involved and freely acknowledged that he could hardly have wished for a more kindly captor. His style is pithier and much less ornate than that of Nami or Ghaffari

and testifies to an eye for detail and a sense of drama that adds interest to his

account. The edition by Modarres Razavi is usefully supplemented, among other notes, by those of Kuhmarra'i (3e). 2. CONTEMPORARY HISTORIES OF PARTIAL RELEVANCE

Detailed chronicles of the periods before 1750 or after 1779, or of events outsids western Iran, often dovetail into the materials mentioned above. Apart from the crumbs of information they let fall, their partisanship and otherwise differing parameters provide valuable counterweights to the Zand-centered histories of PerSian Iraq. a. Mirza Ahmad Khalil Mar'ashi Safavi, Majma' ol-Tavartkh Mirza Khalil had in his unfortunate forebears the best possible source for the events of the first few years after Nadir's assassination. His grandfather, Mir Sayyed Mohammad, was the superintendent of the shrine of the Imam 'Ali al-Reza at Mashhad who for a brief period in 1163/1750 became shah but was subsequently

blinded. His father, the Sayyed's eldest son Daud Mirza, had already slipped away with his brothers to the shrines of Iraq before the Sayyed's fall; in late

September 1751 they made their way to Bushire, whence with the help of the East India Company agent they secretly took ship to India,!4 to seek asylum with 'Alam-

gir, the Gurakani king of Delhi, as had other Safavid refugees before them. In

the face of invasion by Ahmad Shah Dorrani they moved on to Bengal, ending up at Morshedabad, as had Golestana. Mirza Khalil had meanwhile remained at Isfahan and later at Shiraz, where he was well received by Karim Khan,14 but joined his father at Morshedabad in 1192/1778. Daud Mirza died in 1204/1784-85, and four

years later Mirza Khalil compiled this history,!° the full title of which trans-

lates as "Compendium of Histories, concerning the Fall of the Safavid Dynasty and Subsequent Events up to the Year 1207/1793." His main purpose, he claims, was to present a more objective and accurate ac-

count than that of Astarabadi (see below) who, he comments fairly enough, "in accordance with expediency or the temper of the time, to a great extent glossed over, twisted, trimmed, or otherwise falsified some of the data.'16 His own attempt, however, cannot stand up to his ambitious comparison with the Jahangoshay by reason of its extreme unevenness: while the fortunes of his Safavid kinsmen both before and after Nader are fully documented, the conqueror himself and his kin are but scantily treated and Karim Khan is dismissed in a few lines. More-

over, the style is careless and disjointed, though simpler and less pretentious than that of Mirza Mahdi or the two main Zand historians.

b,. Mirza Mohammad Mahdi Kawkabi Astarabadi, Tartkh-e Jahangoshay-e Nadert and Dorra-ye Nadera

The philologist and historian whose account of Nader Shah became the inspiration and model of most, if not all, of the chroniclers already mentioned is himself of least consequence for the period under consideration: the Jahangoshay ends with the collapse of Ebrahim Mirza's march on Mashhad and the Dorra-ye Nadera adds only a few extra details about Ebrahim's capture and death, all of which took place within two years of Nader's assassination. Nothing can usefully be added to Laurence Lockhart's comprehensive appraisal

13. GD VI, 29 September, 3 October 1751.

14. See Rieu I, 193. 15. Mann, "Ueber die Quellen,"’ 10-11; Lockhart, Safavi Dynasty, 510-12; Pertsch, 425-27; Sadri-Afshar, 138; Mar°ashi, editor's introduction. 16. Mar°ashi, editor's introduction; cf. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 294.

Appendix: Survey and Assessment of the Sources 307 of the writer and his works ,-/ except to note that both histories have since been published in competent editions (in which form I have referred to them). e. Histories of Ahmad Shah The fartkh-e Ahmad Shahi (1171/1773, manuscripts in London and Leningrad), by one Mahmud al-Hosayni, part of whose name is read variously as al-Mothanna and alMonsht, adds certain points of detail to our knowledge of events after the assasSination of Nader and especially of Ahmad Shah Dorrani's campaigns in Khorasan, as, to a lesser extent, does the somewhat later history of Central Asia by ‘Abd olKarim "Nadim" Bokhari. 18

d. Early Qajar Histories The only early Qajar history I have used that adds anything to the Zand chroniclers' data on the episodes of Mohammad Hasan Khan and Hosayn Qoli Khan is the

tortuously florid and savagely partisan Tarikh-e Mohammadi, also known as the

Ahsan ol-Tavartkh, compiled in 1211/1797 by Mohammad ali-Saru'i (of Sari in Mazandaran) for Agha Mohammad Khan. 19

3. CONTEMPORARY MEMOIRS, MANUALS, BIOGRAPHIES, FAMILY HISTORIES, GENERAL HISTORIES, EPITOMES, AND SUPPLEMENTS

The remaining Persian narrative sources include the genres tazkera, tarikh, zayl, safarnama, and miscellaneous compendiums. Their information is similarly varied in value, ranging from sustained eyewitness reports, through unsubstantiated obiter dicta to downright fantasy. a, The Kalantar A special place in the history of eighteenth-century Iran is occupied by the men-

oirs (ruznama) of Mirza Mohammad, who was mayor of Shiraz (kaZantar, see 14.3) under Karim Khan and his successors. Born in 1132/1720 of a family of sayyeds who had served the Safavids from the reign of Shah Esma'il, he opted for a secretarial

and administrative career. He was one of the representatives of Fars at Nader's acclamation on the Dasht-e Moghan and soon rose to be head of the tax registry at

Maymand. His maternal uncle, Mirza Mohammad Hosayn Sharifi, was made saheb-

ekhteyar of Fars (equivalent then to kalantar) and in his service Mirza Mohammad

participated in the struggles for Shiraz that were part of the general chaos following Nader's murder. His uncle died just before Karim Khan entered Shiraz in

1168/1754 and Mirza Mohammad was appointed to succeed him (3.7).29 He continued

in the service of 'Ali Morad and Ja'far Khan and completed his memoirs only a short time before his death in 1200/1786. As an eyewitness account of this whole period, the Ruznama is unsurpassed in scope. It is marred by a querulous self-centeredness and a breathless, poorly constructed "'telegraphese,'' both of which tend to distort events. The york has been extensively and sensibly used by Fasa'i in the Farsnama-ye Nasert. b. Rostam Of particular interest, too, is the unusual Rostam ol-Tavarikh by Mohammad Hashem, with the pen name (takhallos) of Asaf and the honorific Rostam ol-Hokama', by

which in view of the title of his work it seems appropriate to refer to him. He states in his foreword that his father's cousin and his grandfather Amir Shams ol-

Din Mohammad both served the Safavids, the latter as master of the royal manufactories (karkhana-bashi) to Shah Soltan Hosayn; his father was at the Vakil's court and served Agha Mohammad Khan in captivity. The work thus consists of a collec-

tion of historical and sociobiographical anecdotes culled from his father's and

17. Lockhart, Nadtr Shah, 292-96; Safavt Dynasty, 512-13. See also Hedayati,

"Mokhtasari," 42-44. 18. See Mann, "Quellenstudien"; Rieu I, 213b; Saidmuradov.

19. Rieu I, 199a; Hedayati, Tartkh, 55, ‘Mokhtasari,"’ 39-40. 20. Kalantar, 49-52. 21. See Kalantar, editor's introduction; Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 301-2; SadriAfshar, 127.

308 Appendix: Survey and Assessment of the Sources grandfather's reminiscences, extending from the beginning of the reign of Shah Soltan Hosayn to the end of that of 'Ali Morad Khan Zand in 1199/1785--and of his son, continuing to the time of Fath ‘Ali Shah--written in the simple and pregnant Style that his father recommended to him. According to the preface of a manuscript of the fazkerat ol-Moluk, this wellknown manual of administration (see 3c) is the work of one Mirza Sami'ta, a great-

uncle of our Mohammad Hashem.23 The Rostam ol-Tavarikh indeed resembles its pred-

ecessor in certain respects, with its lists of officials, provincial revenues, and market prices, and at first sight would appear to be a gold mine of raw material for the social and economic history of eighteenth-century Iran. Unfortunately, many of the anecdotes that can be checked against other sources prove sketchy and fanciful and those that cannot are redolent of fiction. Two examples are the exaggerated account of the Zand princes' prowess, itself embedded within a hilarious history of Karim Khan's relations with the British.24 His anecdotes of the Vakil are generally of an apocryphal nature, often bawdy or scurrilous, though several correspond to versions recounted by Donboli, Malcolm, and later Qajar writers (see below). I have used Rostam's administrative and economic information, especially in chapter 14, but am inclined to doubt its accuracy where not con-

firmed by other sources. 95 References are to the printed edition of the Tubingen manuscript.

e. The Tazkerat ol-Moluk (TM) and Dastur ol-Moluk (DM)

These two manuals of Safavid administration, written to instruct Ashraf and the Afghan conquerors in the arts of court protocol and imperial government as practiced during the reign of the last Safavid monarch (1694-1722) are not strictly contemporary. As has been seen, however, the Safavid ideal remained the basis for government theory for at least fifty years after its collapse; thus by comparing statements from Zand and early Qajar sources with the guidelines laid out in these valuable works, one can gain some idea of the extent to which the Safavid tradition was eroded or replaced by new concepts and practices. The Tazkerat ol-Moluk is anonymous in most manuscripts (but see 3b above) and has been painstakingly edited with both commentary and translation by the late Vladimir Minorsky. The Dastur ol-Moluk of Mirza Rafi'ta, very similar in design and wording, appears in general to be better organized and more accurate; a printed edition, with an excellent introduction by Mohammad Taqi Daneshpazhuh, has

appeared in consecutive issues of the journal of the faculty of letters and social sciences of Tehran University. In view of the interdependence of text and critical comment, both works are listed in the bibliography under the names of their editors. d. Azar and Donboli The most useful of the contemporary dictionaries of literary biography (tazkera) are the famous Atashkada of Lotf 'Ali Beg Azar and the fajrebat ol-Ahrar va

Tasteyat ol-Abrar of 'Abd o1l-Razzaq Beg Donboli. The former, who traveled and Studied widely during the reign of Nader, the interregnum (he accompanied 'Ali Mardan and Karim Khan on campaign), and the days of the Vakil, produced his work

in 1174/1760 at the age of forty: it contains in its final sections (Ahval-e

Mo'aserin--unfortunately not paginated in the Bombay lithograph) a short autobiography, a summary of history from the Safavids to his own time (mainly condensed from Astarabadi's work) and biographical notices of his literary contemporaries 26 Donboli (1176-1243/1762-63 to 1827-28) was much younger, having been brought to

Shiraz by the Vakil in 1765 when only a child, as a hostage for his father Najaf Qoli Khan.27 His book comprises three parts, the first devoted to the biographies of twenty divines, the second to a selection of Safavid and contemporary poets, and the third (which is especially useful) to a historical-autobiographical sketch 22. Rostam, 62-63. 23. DM, 476-77. 24. Pp. 385-98; see 15.6, note 96. 25. See further Rostam, editor's introduction, noh. 26. See Browne, Perstan Literature, 282-84; Donboli, Tajreba I, 269.

27. Tajreba I, 113; II, 41-42; Sadri-Afshdr, 148. See above, 5.7, 13.5.

Appendix: Survey and Assessment of the Sources 309 that includes his experiences in Shiraz. Reference is here made to the two-volume edition by H. Q. Tabataba'i. Other works by 'Abd o01-Razzaq, the Negarestan-e Dara

and the history Ma'aser-e Soltantya, contain relatively little of note. e. Kuhmarra'i One of the most valuable of the purely historical works in this section is the

supplement and notes (zayl va hasheya) to the Mojmal ol-Tavarikh, compiled in Shiraz by Zayn ol-'Abedin Kuhmarra'i over the years 1200-1203/1786-89. The supplement takes the story down to the twilight of the Zand dynasty, and the notes to the body of Golestana's book, which are more germane to our period, include amplifications of the chronology and short biographies of Zand notables and other contemporaries culled from the reminiscences of the author's father and friends in Fars. 28 f. Family and Local Memoirs The useful Fava'ed ol-Safavitya, produced in 1211/1796-97 by one of the Safavid refugees in India, Abu'l-Hasan Qazvini, who had been in Iran up to the year 1205/ 1791, is a cross between a family biography and a history of the contemporary

Iranian world. It concentrates on the careers of the son of ''Soltan Hosayn II,"

the pretender whose cause was unsuccessfully espoused by ‘Ali Mardan Khan (2.6) and other Safavid scions, but provides confirmation and amplification of the main sources the reigns of Shahrokh Shah, well as afor summary of the Zand fortunes .29Solayman II, and Ahmad Shah Dorrani, as The Tazkera-ye Al-e Daud (TAD) is little more than a copy of Mar'‘ashi's wors,

at least in its second part, whereas for the first part the author has drawn ex-

tensively on the Fava'ed ol-Safaviya. The author, Mohammad Hashem, was the fifta son of Mir Sayyed Mohammad (Solayman II) and the uncle of Mirza Khalil Mar'ashi;

born at Mashhad in 1160/1747, the year of Nader's death, he left in 1183/1769 for Isfahan and finally Shiraz, where in 1218/1803 he completed his history (also known as the Zoyur-e Al-e Daud), though he continued to add to it until his deata

ten years later. Despite the fact that he lived through the Afsharid and Zand periods as a boy and a young man, relatively little of his personal experience has foundhand. its way into his work, a history of his ownand family largely at second The section on thewhich Zandsremains is particularly compressed sketchy?> Sayyed ‘Abdollah al-Shushtari, Tazkera-ye Shushtar, and Mir ‘Abd ol-Latif Shushtari, Tohfat ol-'Alam, two memoirs by different sayyeds named after their native town of Shushtar, provide certain details relating to the siege of Basra and the Banu Ka'b,.

g. General History The Zinat ol-Tavartkh, a huge history of the Orient commenced in 1218/1803 for Fath 'Ali Shah by Mirza Mohammad Reza Tabrizi (under whose name it appears in the notes) and ‘Abd ol-Karim b 'Ali Reza ol-Sharif Shahavari, was evidently used extensively by Malcolm. 'Abd ol-Razzaq Beg Donboli is said to have collaborated

with Tabrizi in its composition.3! There are two manuscripts in the British Library, of which I have consulted Add. 23,527 (the relevant folios are 171-83). Shahavari is also the author of the first zayl composed for Nami's history, but despite Nafisi's suggestion is probably not to be confused with the author of the Tartkh-e Zandiya, edited by Ernst Beer; this writer's name appears as Ebn ‘Abd olKarim 'Ali Reza Shirazi, with the patronymic transposed, but the distinction is maintained consistently in all manuscripts. The latter history (British Library MS Add. 24,903) deals chiefly with Karim Khan's successors as seen from a necessarily Qajar viewpoint, and was used by Malcolm;54 it has been of use only for

Beer's introduction to his edition. Similar in scope to the Zinat ol-Tavartkh is the untitled history of Iran 28. MI, btst-o-shesh--bist-o-haft. 29. Cf. Browne, Catalogue, 00.6.41; Rieu I, 133-34; Pertsch, 515-16. 30. Mann, "Quellenstudien," 14-15; MI, btst--bist-o-do; Rieu I, 191.

31. these pioneering works remain the most comprehensive of their kind. There is as yet no comprehensive study of the early Qajar period, but the footnotes to chapter 14 in particular will indicate a range of articles that have been of assistance in assessing the nature o= Zand Iran at its peak and pining. 8. MODERN STUDIES OF THE ZAND PERIOD

When the present study was undertaken, only one fully documented study of Karim Khan had been produced, that of Hadi Hedayati (Tarikh-e Zandiya, vol. 1, Tehran

1334/1955). Though making judicious use of the chief Persian histories, it suffers from some inaccuracies and inadequacies due mainly to a shortage of relevant sources other than Persian. ‘Abd ol-Hosayn Nava'i's book in the popular Ketab-e Javanan series (1344/1965) had also appeared: this comprehensive and readable account uses material from other Persian sources, notably the Rostam ol-Tavarikh (3b) but adds little in the way of documentation or commentary. Sayyed Mohammad 'Ali Keshavarz-Sadr admits in the prologue that his 'Ogab-e Komazan (Tehran, 1343/1964), though adhering in the main to Nami and Golestana,

1s designed as a nonfiction romance rather than history; it gives, however, an indication of the Vakil's place today in the Iranian ethos.

Two dissertations on the Zand period by Iranian scholars, Rajabi and Rawshanzamir, were published in Germany in 1970, and that of Rajabi has also appeared in

44. Malcolm, 622-23 (quoted by Yapp, 348). 45. See Martin Dickson's review article, 503-17; Arunova and Ashrafyan, Gosudarstvo Nadir-Shakha Afshara, 4-5.

316 Appendix: Survey ‘and Assessment of the Sources a Persian version.46 Various articles stemming from their researches also appear in the bibliography. Also of note is Ahmad Faramarzi's Karim Khan-e Zand va Khalij-e Fars (1346/1967) .47 46. See my review of these works in Iranian Studies V (1972) No. 4, 184-88.

47. For an appreciation of this work, as of others in this section, see T.

M. Ricks in Iranian Studies VI (1973) Nos. 2-3, 110-26.

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Index

Abarqu, 28, 124 Golestana 7 Abada, 215, 279 Abu'l-Hasan b. Mohammad Amin. See

“Abbas I Safavi, Shah, 1, 2, 124, 167, Abu'1-Hasan Khan ©Ali Shah Mahallati 226, 228, 239, 272, 278-80, 287, 293 Kohaki, Sayyed, 135-36, 138, 221 “Abbas III Safavi (SAbbas Mirza), 1, Abu'l-Hasan Khan Shirazi, 31

4in, 215 Abu'1-Qasem Khan Nasaqchi-bashi, 72

“Abbasid caliphate, 167, 214 Abu Mohayri family of Najd, 154n

SAbbas Qoli Bayat, 8 Abu Torab. See Esma°il III “Abbas Qoli Khan (governor of Shushtar), Adela Khatun, 82, 84, 169

32-33 Adel Shah Afshar (°Al1i Qoli Khan,

CAbbas Qoli Khan Boghdyeri, 67-68 “Ali Sha3h), 2-7, 14-16, 25, 27, 35,

“Abbas Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 137-38 78, 85, 91, 117, 124, 148, 211,

Abdal Khan Bakhtyadri, 224 213, 229, 251, 255, 258, 269, 305,

“Abdi Pasha, of Baghdad, 189 _ 312 “Abd 01-SAli Khan “Arab Mishmast, 16-17, Adina Soltan Fayli, 130

20, 33-34, 38-40, 44, 49, 51, 66 “A'esha (daughter of Shaykh °Abdol114h),

©Abd o1-°Ali Khan Dashtestani, 28 161, 219

“Abd 01-Baqi Khan Zangana, 225 Afghanistan, 2-3, 248. See also Ahmad “Abd 01-Ghaffar Aqdsi Soltan Tekelu, Shah Dorrani

19, 57 Afghans, 1-3, 6, 14-15, 27, 54-55, 58,

©Abd o1-Ghaffar Soltan Khan Shamlu, 93 68, 72-73, 77, 80, 84, 124-25, 139, “Abd ol-Hamid (Ottoman sultan), 187-88 142-43, 205, 210, 219, 223, 243,

“Abd o1-Jabbar Soltan Tekelu, 57 272, 288, 294; Abdali, 4, 17 (see “Abdollah Bani Ma“in, Shaykh, 152-54, also Ahmad Shah Dorrani); Ghalji

159-61, 172, 265 (Ghalija, Ghalzai), 49, 223, 303,

©Abdollah Beg (Khan) Kalhor, 188, 308 (see also Azad Khan Afghan) 254-55, 281 Afsharid dynasty, 3-11, 294, 304-5, “Abdollah Khan (Pasha of Zohab), 55-56, 309, 313, 315

184, 187 Afshars, 14-15, 48, 66, 68, 84-85,

“Abdollah Khan Afghan, 54 209-10, 224, 243; Afshar clans, 85.

‘Abdollah Lari, 12In See also Fath Ali Khan Afshar;

“Abdollah Montafeq, Shaykh, 176-77 _ Urmiya

198 2, 5, 9-10, 36, 69, 77-78, 112,

“Abdollah Pasha, of Baghdad, 189-91, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar Qoyunlu,

©Abd ol-Mottaleb Korbali, 58 124, 136n, 137-38, 140-41, 143,

“Abd 01-Rahim Khan (brother of Hajji 145-49, 194, 200, 209, 212, 218-19,

Ebrahim) , 300 235, 238, 252, 267, 275, 278, 287, Aga), 183 Aghasi Khan Bigdeli Shamlu, 20 “Abd o1-Razzaq Beg. See Donboli Ahmad (Imam of Oman), 159, 180. See “Abd 01-Rahman (nephew of Solayman _ 289, 294, 297-301, 307, 310, 314

Abik'uran, 30n also Muscat; Oman

Abivard, 18 Ahmad Beg (Khan} Donboli, 92 Abrahams (East India Company agent), Ahmad Khaza°el, Shaykh, 182

179, 194, 266 Ahmad Pasha Babdn, 185-87, 190-91

Abu'l-Fath Khan Bakhtyari, 15, 21-24, Ahmad Pasha, of Baghdad, 168

27 Ahmad Shah Dorrani (Ahmad Khan Abdali

Abu'l-Fath Khan Zand, 92, 199, 208, Saduzi'i), 2, 3, 7-10, 13, 60, 79, 213, 219, 229n, 234, 283, 294, 126, 205-7, 294, 307, 309, 312

297, 298 b.Ahmad Abu'l-Hasan Mo‘ezzSoltan ol-Din. Dorraéni, See “432° of Kerman, 129,

Ghaffari Ahwaz, 162

327

328 Index

Ainslie (British ambassador at Amir Aslan Khan Afshar Qirqlu, 4-5,

Istanbul) , 253 14-15, 48, 85, 251

Akarkay, fortress of, 142 Amir Beg Sistani, 206 Akhaitsikhe, 189 Amir Guna Khan Afshar Irlu Taromi, 64, Akhura, 239 69, 83-84, 87-90, 130n, 131, 134, “Alam Khan Afghan, 51, 54 157, 165, 279, 281 “Alawan Al Kathir, Shaykh, 33, 107 Amir Khan “Arab Mishmast Tupchi-bdshi,

Aleppo, 167, 253 5-6, 16, 305 Alexander (Georgian pretender), 213 Amir Khan Qara'i, 9

CAliabad (Shahi), 65, 139 Amir Mohammad Sami* Ganj °A1i-Khani, Sali Aqa (motasallem of Basra), 162-64 _ 240

SAli Asghar Savadkuhi, 142 Amol, 60

SAli Beg Shaqaqi, 280 Anar, 134 Ali Hemmat Khan Zand, 143, 196-97 Anjadan, 21, 135

“Ali Khan (Indian envoy), 271 Anzali (Enzeli, Bandar Pahlavi), 208,

©Ali Khan Ghalji, 65, 68 _ 247, 251

“Ali Khan Kord Qarachurlu, 66, 280 Aga SAli Khan Sirjani, 134

SAli Khan Lari, 120n Aga ©Ali Reza (governor of Kerman), 135 “Ali Khan Shadhiseven, 80, 89, 106, Aga& °Ali Shafti, 209 119-20, 132, 139, 281 Aqa ©Ali Vazir, of Kerman, 314

©Ali Khan Shagaqi, 49, 84, 86 Aga Fazlollah (mostawfi of Shiraz) , 232 “Ali Mardan Khan Bakhtyari, 4, 21-24, Aga Hadi Shafti, 207 26, 28-34, 36, 38, 40-42, 44-47, Aga Mir Bager Gorgyaraq Esfahani, 248 75, 106, 110-11, 117, 169, 214-15, Aga Mirza ©Ali Khan Zand, 187

223-24, 226, 258, 305 Aga Mohanmad °Al1i (mojtahed), 221

89, 99 _ Qom)}, 216n

©Ali Mardan Khan Kuchek Bakhtyari, Aga Mohammad Mahdi (vakil-e ra°aya of

“Ali Mardan Khan Zand, 46 Aga Rafi® Shafti, 209

©Ali Mohanmad Khan Zand "Shir-kosh," Aga Taqi (kalantar of Kerman), 135

62,°97, 104-9, 112, 115-16, 123, CArabestan. See Khuzestan; Vali 127, 133, 143, 181, 194-97, 219, Arabia, 154

236, 281, 297 Arab tribes and communities, 150-52,

©Ali Morad Khan Afshar, 87 300. See also Al Kathir; Banu

“Ali Morad Khan Bakhtyari Chahar Ka°b; Banu Khaled; Banu Lam; Banu

Lang, 110 Ma°in; Huwala; Khaza°el; Montafeq;

“Ali Morad Khan Zand, 91, 123, 138, Mosha©sha*; Qawasem

143-44, 174, 186, 191, 207, 213, Aras (Araxes), river, 205, 209, 214,

219, 221, 280, 291, 297-98, 253 303-4, 307-8 Ardabil, 104, 209 “Ali Naqi Beg of Jupar, 134 Ardalan. See Kurdistan; Vali

©Ali Nagi Khan Zand, 192, 298 Ardestan, 130

“Ali Pasha al-cAjami, of Baghdad, 169 CArja (Ardsje, Argia), 197n “Ali Qoli Khan (governor of Dezful), Arg (citadel and palace) of Shiraz,

107 : 199, 274, 276-77, 297-99

“Ali Qoli Khan Afshar. See ©Adel Shah Armenia, 209. See also Erivan;

“Ali Qoli Khan Kazaruni, 58, 99 Nakhchevan; Qarabagh

“Ali Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 137-38, Armenians, 64, 69, 88, 174, 193-95,

145 199, 208, 211, 222, 237-40, 250,

“Ali Reza Khan Qanavati Behbahani, 114 253, 269, 314-15. See also Julfa

“Ali Saleh Beg Bakhtyari, 224 Amy of Karim Khan, 225, 279-83, 286,

“Ali Sheshpar, 88 293; names of corps and ranks, “Ali Shir Khan Afghan, 80 280-81

©Ali Vays Khan Zand, 21 Artillery, 6, 15, 19n, 87, 152, 213,

Al Kathir, 32, 101, 107, 113, 162, 219 275, 280 Allaho Akbar Gorge, 236 Arts and crafts, 237, 243, 274, 305 Allah Qoli Khan Zangana, 187, 225 Ashraf (Behshahr), 5, 60, 142

Allah Verdi Khan Karayeli, 141, 145-46 Ashraf Soltan (Afghan?), 14

Allahyar Khan Afghan, 125 Askar Khan Rashti, 280

Allahyar Khan Uzbek, 14 Aspindza, 212

Al Sabah, 198 Astarabad (Gorgan), 6, 9, 35-37, 72-78, Alvand, 132, 138-39, 145-46, Amarluriver, tribe,225 8799, 205, 207, 252, 141-42, 291, 298

Index 329 Astarabadi, Mirza Mahdi Khan, 41, 291, Bardasir, 134

304-7 Barforush (Babol), 137, 142-44

Astrakhan, 249, 252 Barkhurdar Khan Zand, 299 “Atabat (the Shi°i shrines in Iraq), Barzollah Khan Zand, 142

¢, 172, 248 Basht, 114 Ata'ollah Khan Uzbek, 14n, 15 Basra, 140, 155, 159-60, 162-64, 166,

Avars, 211 168, 173, 186, 248, 256-57, 259, Azad Khan Afghan, 13, 26, 43-45, 48-54, 261, 263, 268-69; Zand siege of,

56-61, 63-69, 75, 79, 82-85, 93-94, 167-83, 187, 189, 207, 252, 254, 113, 118-19, 126, 162, 169, 184, 263, 265-66, 271, 289, 291-93, 297, 206, 210, 214, 223, 226, 239, 305, 309, 313-15; Zand occupation _ 242-43, 292, 305, 313 of, 192-98, 236, 246, 305, 313-15 Azar, Lotf ©Ali Beg Bigdeli Shamlu, Bayat tribe, 5, 31, 60 243-45, 308 Bayramvand tribe, 225 Azerbaijan, 6, 13, 15, 50, 81-94, Bazaars, 248, 275, 283 110-11, 115, 138, 157, 190, 192, Baz-gasht (literary movement), 244 205, 209, 213-14, 241-42, 250, Bazin, P&ére Louis, 22-23, 312

299; northern Azerbaijan, see Beaumont (East India Company employee), Transaraxia 264-66, 270 Beglerbegi (state-appointed govemor

Baba Khan Chavoshlu (Chaposhlu), 18 general of a province), 27, 32, Baban (Qara Chowalan), 171, 185-86 218, 224, 232

Baba Rasul Shater-bashi, 99 Behabad, 127

Baft, 125 Behbahan, 114, 162 Baghdad, 41, 43, 155, 168-70, 175, 189, Behbud Khan Ataki, 7, 35 191-92, 198, 252-55, 259, 268, 281 Bengal, 237

Bagh-e Nazar, 200 Bestam Khan Zand, 115, 133-34, 138, 219 Bagh-e Shahrokh Khan, 132 Biabanak, 126 Bahma'i district, 225 Bibi Shahjahan Khanom, 137-38, 219 Bahrayn, 151, 154-55, 157-58, 163, 269 Bigirlu tribe, 226 Bajlan, 55 Bigzada tribe, 212 Bakhtyari, 3-4, 17, 22, 30-31, 44, 97, Bilavar, 20

102, 105, 108, 113, 116, 125, 175, Birjand, 206 199, 224, 236, 279, 299; Chahar Bisotun (Behistun), 16, 20 Lang, 110-11; Haft Lang, 15, 21, Black Sea, 170, 246 110-11, 224; transported by Karim Boghayeri family, 104

Khan, 110-11, 226 Bogolyubov (Russian consul), 212 Ballyet, Emmanuel, 267 Borujerd, 15, 19, 54, 69, 279

Baku, 210, 249 Borj-e Molla Qoli (Kerman), 132

Baluch, Baluchistan, 2, 15,68, 125, 205-6 Bowyear (East India Company agent), 261

Bam, 130, 134, 206, 297, 300 Britain, British India. See East

Bana, 190 India Company; Levant Company ; Banader (the Persian Gulf littoral Russia Company between Bushire and Bandar SAbbas), Britannta (British vessel), 264 29, 117, 152-53 Bubiyan Island, 162 Bandar SAbbas (Gombroon), 4, 13, 31, Budaq Khan Zand, 18, 103, 289 110, 117, 120, 122, 125, 153-54, Buildings of Karim Khan, 241-42,

156-57, 159-61, 173, 205, 247, 272-78, 293

256-59, 266, 271 Buschmann (Dutch agent on Kharg), 157

Bandar Rig, 59, 120, 122, 154-58, Bushire (Bushehr), 120, 122, 153-54, 173, 259, 264, 279. See also Mir 156-59, 165, 170, 173, 178, 234,

Mohanna Za°abi 248, 253, 257, 259-60, 263-65, 286,

Banu Kab, 32-33, 108n, 113, 120, 299-300, 306

157, 161-66, 168-70, 172-75, 177, Byleveld (Dutch agent on Kharg), 269

180, 236, 261-63, 266, 267n, 309 Banu Khafaja, 161 Caravanserais, 271, 275

Banu Khaled, 182-83 Caspian Sea, 13, 209, 246, 248-52, Banu Lam, 33, 112, 168 311. See also Trade, with Russia Banu Ma°in, 152, 154 Caucasus, 246, 248. See also Trans-

Banu Sa%b, 154 araxia Bager Beg (governor of Kerman), 128n Chahardeh-Kalata, 138, 142, 145

Barakat Bani Ka°b, Shaykh, 165, 180 Chahar ,Mahal1 lll, 224(district near Isfahan),

330 Index

Chaldiran, 92 Dorrill, Thomas (East India Company Chamchamal (Chamchal), 46, 55 resident), 168, 179 Charak, 154 Douglas (East India Company agent),

Chehel Tokhm, 125 153, 259 Chelebi family (Armenian merchants), Drake (British vessel), 264

256 Dutch East India Company (Oost-indische

Christians, 171, 222, 237-38, 280, Compagnie), 4, 153-57, 239, 246,

313; religious orders, 23, 69, 250, 252, 256, 258, 267, 269-70,

222. See also Armenians; Julfa 311

Coins and coinage, 213-14, 251,

312; debasement of, 248; foreign, Eagle (British cruiser), 177-78 current in Iran, 248-49. See also Earthquakes, 241, 275, 278

Specie East India Company, the Honourable,

Compagnie des Indes. See French 58, 117, 119, 124, 150, 153-55,

consuls and commerce 157-59, 163-65, 169, 173-74, 176-78,

Copper, production and trade of, 247, 180, 194, 196-97, 238, 246, 250, Cotton, cotton cloth and goods, 250, also Trade, with Britain and

256 256-67, 270, 306, 308, 310-11. See

253, 256 British India

Customs and port dues, 159, 171, 228, Ebrahim Khalil Aga (Khan) Javanshir,

248, 257, 260, 266 86,Ebrahim 89, 210 Khan SAmarlu, 89, 208

Daghestan, 189-90, 209. See also Ebrahim Khan Boghayeri, 9, 66-68, 71,

Qobba; Transaraxia 73-74, 87, 98, 104

Damascus, 254 Ebrahim Mirza (Shah) Afshar, 4-7,

Damghan, 73-74, 138, 140, 145, 207 14-16, 19, 27-28, 32, 48, 85, 125, Darab (Darabjerd), 28, 119, 125, 300 150, 211, 223, 255, 269, 305-6, 312

249, 251-52 229,John, 240249 Darra Gaz, 18, 279 Elton, Darugha, 14, 29; defined, 234, 282-83 Emam Qoli Khan Afshar, 91

Darband (Derbent), 67, 209-10, 213, Eltezam-namcha (tax-farming agreement), Darvish Montafeq, Shaykh, 174, 176-77, Emam Qoli Khan Zangana, 20, 56

183, 193-94, 198 Emam Qoli Mirza Afshar, 3

Daryabegi (admiral), 150, 159, 168 Emamzada-ye Zayd (in Tehran), 200

Dasht-e Hamun, 111 Emin, Joseph (Armenian nationalist),

Dasht-e Qipchaq (the Turkman Steppe 213 north of Astarabad), 137, 143, 146n Eqta® (district of Kerman), 134-35 Dashtestan (the upper Gulf littoral SEraq-e ©Ajam. See Persian Iraq between Bushire and Hendian), 120, Erekle II (King of Georgia), 49-50, 154, 205, 247; recruits from, 68, 83-84, 93, 189-90, 210-14, 252

62-63, 65, 120, 279, 281 Erivan, 50, 190, 205, 211, 253

Dawraq, 32-33, 113, 161-63, 165, 261 Erzurum, 253-54

Dayri Pashas of Basra, 161 Esfandaga, 134 Deh Fish (Deh Pish), 118 Eskandar Khan Zand, 51, 53 Dervish Mehmet Pasha (Ottoman grand Eslamiu tribe, 87

vizier), 254 Esma°il I Safavi, Shah, 1, 2, 104n,

Dezful, 32, 107, 112-13, 162 209, 307

"Direct route,'' the (communications Esma°il III Safavi (Abu Torab Mirza),

between Europe and India), 198, 1, 23, 33, 37, 60, 66, 74, 79, 117,

256, 259, 266 199, 213-14, 216, 288

Divan-begi, 283 Esma°il Khan Fayli, 30, 33, 41, 46, Divankhana, 242, 275, 278 111-12, 225 Diyarbekir, 83, 189, 254 Esma°il Khan Qashga'i, 255

Do-Ab (in _Silakhur region), 55 Esma°il Khan Zand, 87, 299

Donboli, “Abd ol-Razzaq Beg Maftun, Espenaqchi- zada Hafez Mostafa Pasha,

88, 92, 105, 215, 244, 287, 291, 182, 189

308-9, 315 Euphrates, river, 167

Donboli family, 91, 209

Dorran (village of Kuhpaya, Kerman), Falahiya (Shadagan), 162-63

128, 131 Famine, 32, 70, 193, 226-27, 240-41

Dorrani dynasty and empire. See Fandarask, 146n

Ahmad Shah Dorrani Farahabad, 60

Index 331

Farahan, 21, 65 Golestana, Abu'l-Hasan, 25, 40, 44, 56, Farajollah Mosha©sha°i, Sayyed (vali 303, 305-6

of CArabestan), 32, 167 Golpaygan, 21-22, 69

Farajollah, Sayyed (kalantar of Golunabad, 64

Shushtar), 33 Gombroon. See Bandar ‘Abbas

279, 298 258 Fasa, 111 264-65, 270

Fars, 14, 24, 27, 29-30, 33, 64, 86, Gorgan, 142, 242

110, 113, 228, 235, 242, 247, 254, Graves (East India Company agent), 23,

Far*un Al Kathir, 107 Green (East India Company employee),

Fatema Khanom, 219 Guilds, 233-34

Fath “Ali Khan Afshar Arashlu, 28, Gulf of Oman, 151 49, 52-53, 55, 58-61, 64-66, 68, 71, 73, 75, 79, 81-86, 88n, 89-90, Hadi Khan Lashani, 60 93-94, 98, 101, 105, 113, 116-17, Hafar, 163-64 Fath SAli Khan Qajar Develu, 141 Haft Khwan (Haft Khani), 21 Fath “Ali Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 35, Hajar of Kangan, Shaykh, 158 Fath ©Ali Khan Qobba'i (Darbandi), Hajji SAli Qoli of Kazarun, 299

210, 242 Hafez, tomb of, 59, 277

77, 215 Hajjiabad, 119, 126

67, 189, 208, 210, 212-14, 251-52 Hajji Aqa Mohammad Ranani, 82, 97, 105,

Fath SAli Shah Qajar (Baba Khan), 2, 160, 161n, 235, 245

78, 140, 145, 147, 200, 209, 219, Hajji Baba Khan Bakhtyadri, 27, 29

289, 294, 310 Hajji Beg Afshar Gunduzlu, 85 Fayg-e Rabbani (ship built for Nader Hajji Chelebi of Sheki, 211 Shah), 150, 154 Hajji Ebrahim (kalantar of Shiraz), Feghan SAli Khan Qajar, 142 299-300, 315

Fin, 105 Hajji Ja°far Khan (governor of Tehran),

Firuzabad, 28 86 Firuzkuh, 65, 74 Hajji Jamil Fumani, 36, 61, 93, 207, French consuls and commerce, 246, 256, 251

267, 268, 311 Hajji KhanHajji Kengerlu, 210 Khan Lari (Mir Shokr Hajji), 117

193 district), 180

Galley (East India Company employee), Hajji Naser (headman in Hawr ol-Hammar

Ganava, 156, 158 Hajji Qasem Khan (governor of Maragha),

Gandoman, 53 a 81

Ganja, 209, 211, 213, 246 Hajji Tughan Farahani, and daughter, Garden (East India Company employee) , 24-25, 65

178, 265-66 Hajji Zaki Khan, of Chahardeh-Kalata,

Gardens, in Shiraz, 200, 276, 278 145

Garmsir (the lowlands of the Persian Hakem (governor of a town or region),

Gulf littoral between Bushire and 218, 232-33

Garus (Bijar),Khaza‘el, 67 298Shaykh, 182 Gaz, 22 Hamad

Bandar CAbbas)}, 28, 86, 118 Hamadan, 14-16, 24, 191, 247, 253, 279,

George II of England, 251 Harem (andarun, haramsaray) of Karim Georgia, kingdom of, 209-14, 311, 312. Khan, 102, 290-91

See also Erekle II Harunabad (Shahabad-e Gharb), 187

Georgians, 30, 66, 199, 213, 247, 250, Hasan SAli Beg MoSayyer ol-Mamalek, 3

279-80 Hasan “Ali Khan of Ardalan, 19-20,

Gerash, fortress of, 126 25-26, 184, 210

Ghaffari, Abu'l-Hasan, 62, 244, 304-5, Hasan “Ali Khan Qajar of Erivan, 89

310 Hasan Khan Qajar Develu, 141-42

Ghanem Bani Ka°b, Shaykh, 165 Hasan Pasha of Mardin, 190-91

84, 280 263-64, 268

Gholamin, ghelman (elite bodyguard), Hasan Soltan (Khan) of Bandar Rig, 158,

Gildan, 5, 13, 67, 139, 207-9, 227, Hashem Khan Bayat, 52, 223

248-49, 253, 264, 291 Hatef of Isfahan, 244 Gilan-e Gharb, 25 Hawiza (Huwayza), 32, 113, 162, 174 Gmelin (Russian naturalist), 210, 313 Hawr ol-Hammar, 180

Golestan Palace, 200, 242, 278 Haybatollah Khan Bavi, 114-15

332 Index

Haydar ©Ali of the Deccan, 160, 263, Jabbara, Shaykh (of Huwala Arabs), 151

* 267, 270-71 Jaf tribe, 55

Haydar Khan Bakhtyari, 111, 218 Ja=far Khan Bayat, 8 Haydar Khan Zand, 87, 99 Jafar Khan Lari, 121, 153-54, 259 Haydar Khan Zangana, 56, 191 Ja far Khan Zand, 116n, 225, 248, 274, Haydar Qoli Khan Zangana, 172, 255, _282, 289, 298-99, 305, 307, 314

281 Ja -far Mirza (governor of Isfahan), 69

Hazar Jarib, 138, 141 Ja “far Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 137-38,

Hazin, Shaykh SAli,Khan 244 145 Hella, 182 Jahangir Afshar Arashlu, 94 Hedayatollah Khan of Rasht, 93, 100, Jahangir Khan Zand, 108 207-9, 251-52, 291 Jajorm, 206 Hendian (Hendejan), 162, 166 Jalil Khan Hamadani, 94

Herat, 2, 7-8, 247. Jam, 110 225 Hejaz, 248 Jani Aqa Shahilu, Hodavand (branch of Mishmast Arabs), Jani Khan Qashqa'i, 225

225 Jan Mohammad Khan Baluch, 141, 144

Hormuz, 152-54, 159-61, 205 Jarahi, river, 161, 163

256 Jayezan, 114

Horses, breeding and export of, 247, Jawasem, Jawasmi. See Qawasem Hosayn SAli Khan Afshar Qasemlu, 70 Jayran (wife of Mohammad Hasan Khan

Hosayn SAli Khan Qajar of Erivan, Qajar), 137

210, 212 Jazayerchi (harquebusier), 51, 87, Hosayn Khan Qajar Develu, Mohammad, 9, Jervis (East India Company agent), 36, 41n, 60, 66, 71-78 260-61 Hosayn Khan Zangana, 15-16 Jester (mogalled), 282, 288 Hosayn Khan Beg Afshar Qasemlu, 85 142, 280

Hosayn Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu Jews, 174, 193-95, 222, 237, 240, 291 (Jahansuz Shah), 77, 122, 137-38, Jonayd Safavi, Shaykh, 91 140-46, 149, 172, 219, 291, 307, Julfa (New Julfa), 26-27, 52, 64, 69, Hostages, 118, 120-23, 140, 145-46, Julfar, 151, 159 154, 160-61, 164, 218-19, 224, 244, Jupar, 134

315 199, 227, 237, 239-40

264-65, 283, 287, 306 Justice, administration of, 216,

Houtingh, Pieter (Dutch agent on 233-34, 283; in accordance with

Kharg), 157 sharitat, 220, 234-35, 283,

Huwala Arabs, 118, 151-52 289-90. See also Divan-begi; Vakil ol-ra°aya

Ilbegi, 225

Ilkhan, ilkhani, 21, 92, 225 Kadkhoda (village headman, ward alderImam SAli Reza, shrine of, 3, 6-7, man, or other recognized community

172 spokesman), 29, 103, 114, 216, 234, Imeretia, 211-12 283, 299 Inaq Khan Zand, 18 Ka'id Kalb SAli, 15-16 India, Indians, 154, 167, 237, 246-50, Kaka Khan Zand, 87, 101

253, 259, 263, 270-71, 293, 305-6, Kal, 117 309; Regulating Act for, 265. See Kalantar, 27, 232; defined, 233-34,

also East India Company; Haydar 299

Cali; Trade Kalantar of Fars, Mirza Mohanmad,

Iraq (Arabian Iraq, Ottoman Iraq), 15, 27-28, 59, 98-99, 103, 173, 232, 112, 161, 167, 172, 187, 237, 264 234-35, 291-92, 307 Isfahan, 4-6, 10, 13-16, 21-24, 29-30, Kalat, 3, 8, 295 72, 106, 110-11, 119-20, 127, 154, Kalb “Ali Khan Zand, 191, 282 173, 223, 234, 237-41, 244, 247, Kalhor tribe, 25, 36, 38-39, 55, 225 258, 278-79, 283, 297-99, 303; Kamal Khan Afghan, 141 taken by Azad Khan, 52, 65, 224; Kamal Soltan of Bidshahr, 119 taken by Karim Khan, 61, 64; taken Kamara, 21 by Mohammad Hasan Khan, 62, 64, Kamarej, 59, 118, 126

69-70 Kamar Khan Zand, 40, 55

Ismailis, 135-36 Kamazan, 17-18, 20 Istanbul, 188-89, 254, 281 Kangan, 62, 111, 156

Izadkhwast (Yazdekhwast), 298 Karam Khan Hotaki Afghan, 15

Index 353

Karam Khan Vand, 55 Khosraw Khan of Ardalan, 26n, 184-85, Karbala, 13, 171-72 190-91 Karim Khan Borbor, 199 and note Khosraw Khan Mokri, 66 Karim Khan Zand, Mohammad (the Vakil): Khoy, 91, 190, 209, 253

early career, 18-26, 288; struggle Khurmuj , 157, 279

against ©Ali Mardan Khan Bakhtyari, Khuzestan (“Arabestan), 15, 32-33,

29-31, 33-34, 42-47; falls ill, 102, 106-8, 110, 113, 157, 162-63, 170, 116-17, 241, 243, 272; personality Khwaf, 9 and achievements, 287-95; death, Khwaja Ya°qub (broker for East India 198-201, 255, 266, 290, 294, 297; Company), 193-95 treatment of, in sources, 304-8, Khwansar, 21

116, 199, 292; settles in Shiraz, 174, 205, 242, 253, 279, 314

310-11, 313, 315 Kizlyar (Chikishliar), 249, 252

Karkhana-ye shah (royal studios and Kniphausen, Baron, 155-56, 252, 269

manufactories), 243, 304, 306-7 Kolah-e farangi, 200, 278 Kartli and Kakheti. See Georgia Kolbad (Golbad), 142

Karun, river, 162, 164, 167, 253 Korbal, 58

299 Koy Sanjaq, 185-86

Kashan, 14, 105, 241, 244, 247, 279, Kotal-e Dokhtar, 30, 71

Kati® Al Kathir, Shaykh, 107 Kuhbanan, 134 Kavir desert, 206 Kuhgiluya (Kuh-e Gilu), 110, 113-16, Kazarun, 30, 58-59, 75, 113, 118, 120, 122, 162, 225

247, 299, 300 Kuhpaya, 130

Kazemayn, 172 Kura (Kur), river, 209, 253

Kazem Khan Bakhtyari, 105 Kurdistan, 13-14, 24, 83, 113, 161, Kazem Khan Qaraja-daghi, 5, 49, 67, 84, 171-72, 174, 184, 187, 190, 192,

88, 92, 105, 210 205, 236; Zand campaigns in, 25-26,

Kazzaz, 19 315

Kazem Soltan Zand, 97 184-87, 190-91, 207, 213, 246, 254, Kerkuk, 83, 187, 190-91 Kurds, 25, 31, 54, 66, 75, 77, 84, 89,

Kerman, 13, 62, 110, 119, 122, 124-34, 110, 131, 141, 224, 280; Ahmadavand,

154, 205-6, 221, 228-29, 242, 247, 225; Balbas, 67, 93; Gorani, 225; 281, 299-300 Hakari, 93; of Khabushan, 2, 4; of Kermanshah, 5-6, 14-20, 24, 36, 38, Khorasan, 5, 8, 9; Mokri, 66-67, 56, 190-91, 225, 253, 279; fortress 85; Moqaddam, 85; Shaq&qi, 55, 81, (qal©a) of, 5, 15-17, 38-41, 43-44, 84, 86, 123, 224; Yazidi, 93

55-57, 289 Kushk, 134-35 .

Khabis (Shahdad), 134 Kuwait (Grane, Qorayn), 178, 198, 266 Khabushan (Quchan), 2, 4, 17 Khadija Bigom (sister of Mohammad Hasan Lak tribes, 17, 19n, 56, 225, 244,

Khan), 102, 137-38, 143, 149, 219 279, 281, 288 Khamsa (province), 5, 105, 122, 298 253

Khaled Pasha (governor of Shahrezur), 48 Lambskin products and exports, 247,

Khamsa (tribal confederation), 225 Land tenure and administration, 207,

Khana Korgan, 242 224, 226, 232, 235-36

Khanaqin, 108, 187, 253 Langarud, 251 Kharijites, 160, 180 Lar, Larestan, 29, 110, 113, 117-22,

Kharg, 153, 155-58, 165, 239, 252, 205, 242, 279, 299

261-63,157 268-70 Larak, 15858, 60 Khargu, Lashani tribe, Khagga (crown lands), 207, 228 Latif Khan (Nader Shah's darydbegi),

Khawr Musa, 161, 163 168 Khayrabad, 115 Latouche India266 Company agent), Khazafel Arabs, 182, 198 (East 179, 195, Khesht, 58-59, 75 Lavar, 156-57 Khizr (Khezr), 270 Lenga (Bandar Lenga), 152

Khodabandalu, 26, 54 Levant Company , 256

Khodadad Beg Afshar Qasemlu, 85 Lezgins (Lazgi, Lesghians), 211 Khoda Morad Khan Zand, 86, 127-29 Literature, 243-45, 305, 308

Khorasan, 2, 4-5, 7-8, 10, 14, 17, 24, Lotf ©Ali Beg Azar Bigdeli Shamlu.

206, 244, 248,15, 254, See Azar Khorramabad, 53,294 112, 225 -

334 Index Lotf “Ali Khan (son of Shahrokh Khan Mazinan, 9-10

Afshar), 135 Mehmandar-bashi, 234 Lotf ©Ali Khan Gorji Tupchi-bashi, 87, Minab, 120, 206 213 Mir SAlam Khan SArab Khozayma, 7-9

Lotf ©Ali Khan Cherkes, 280 Mehr “Ali Khan Tekelu, 19-21, 24, 56 Lotf ©Ali Khan Zand, 136n, 147,154, 200, Mir “Ali of Bandar Rig, 264

217, 221, 299-301, 315 Mir Hasan Khan (governor of Tabas),

Luristan, 108, 214, 236. See also Lurs, 300

Fayli; Vali Mir Hasan Khan Khorasani, 14

Lurs, 4, 17, 22, 42, 44, 46, 89, 108, Mir Hosayn Za°abi, 151, 155-56 114, 141-42, 199, 225, 244, 281; Mir Mohanna Za°abi, 151, 155-58, 165, Bavi, 114; Fayli, 33, 53-54, 97, 102, 173, 218, 236, 239, 259, 261-63, 112-13, 116, 224, 279; Jaki, 115n; 267n, 268-70, 313 Liravi, 115-16, 283; Mamassani, 62, Mir Nasir Za°abi, 151, 154-55, 269

Kuhgiluya nate), 268-69 , Lut desert, 206 Mir Sayyed Mohammad. See Solayman II 116n. See also Esma°il Khan Fayli; Miroudot, Dom (French consul desigoafavi

Madras, 151, 270 Mirza “Abd o01-Vahhab Musavi (governor

Mahdi Khan Afshar Qasemlu, 48, 85 of Isfahan), 232, 244-45 Mahdi Khan Khal°atbari, 208 Mirza Abu'l-Hasan Shirazi, 27 Mahdi Khan Savadkuhi, 143-44 Mirza Abu Mohammad (kalantar of

Mahdi Khan Zand, 18, 196 Tabriz), 92

Mahdi Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 137 Mirza Abu Taleb (governor of Lar and

Mahmud Beg (Georgian retainer of Banader), 117, 153

Safavids), 42 Mirza Abu Taleb of Shushtar, 108n

Mahmud Ghalji (Afghan shah of Iran), Mirza “Ali Beg Khurmuji, 58

41 Mirza ‘Ali Khan Qajar Develu, 139,

Mahmud Pasha Baban, 84, 185-86 141, 145-46

Makran, 206 114 Maku, 253 Mirza “Aqil Esfahani, 102, 218

Mahrattas, 270 Mirza SAli Reza (governor of Jayezan),

Malabar, 270 Mirza Baba (rebel at Tabriz), 88 Mal-e Ahmadlu, 58 Mirza Hosayn Rayeni, 130, 134-35

Mamluk pashalik of Baghdad, 168, 170, Mirza Khalil Maragha'i, 92

187-88, 254. See also Baghdad; Mirza Mahdi Khan. See Astarabadi

“Omar Pasha Mirza Mo‘ezz ol-Din (Mohammad)

Manuchehr Beg Zand, 242 Ghaffari Kashani, 62, 70, 82, 105-6, Maragha, 5, 81, 83-84, 247, 276 233, 304

Margil, 175 Mirza Mohammad (kalantar of Fars). Mariwan, 185, 190 See Kalantar Marriage alliances, 92, 208, 213, 219 Mirza (Mohammad) Amin (Karim Khan's

Marv, 247 physician), 98, 102 Marvdasht plain, 58 Mirza Mohammad Borujerdi, 102, 218,

Mashhad, 2-5, 8, 13, 154, 172, 211, 233 229, 244, 247, 286; attacked by Mirza Mohammad Hosayn (saheb-ekhteyar Ahmad Shah Dorrani, 8-10, 126 of Fars), 27-30, 234, 307

Mashiz, 128, 133 Mirza Mohammad Hosayn (al-Hosayni)

Masih Khan Bavi, 114 Farahani, 218, 303

122, 219 148, 218, 233

Masih Soltan (Khan) Lari, 118, 120, Mirza (Mohammad) Ja°far Esfahani, 102,

Ma°sum CAli Khan Afshar, 29-31 Mirza Mohammad Ja°far Khorasani, 187, Ma°sum “Ali Shah Dekani Ne‘matollahi, 281

221 Mirza Mohammad Khan Qajar Develu, 280

Mataresh Arabs of Oman, 154 Mirza (Mohammad) Shafi Tabrizi, 88,

Mawla Mottaleb Korbali, 32 92

Mawla Mottaleb Mosha°sha°i, 98, 107 Mirza Mortaza (father of Esma°il III),

Mawla Soltan Zand, 105-6 23

Mawla Verdi Khan Qazvini, 82 Mirza Sayyed Reza Khan (governor of Mazandaran, 5, 13, 15, 36, 122, 138, Isfahan), 14 140-41, 144, 149, 157, 172, 207, Mirza Zaher of Isfahan, 114-15

227, 236, 242, 291, 298 Mirza Zaki (n&'eb of Gaskar), 207

Index 335 Mkrtic' Vardapet forelate of Julfa), Mohammad Reza Khan Sirjani, 134

240 Mohammad Sa°id Khan of Old Shamakhi, ‘121n Mohammad Shafi Shushtari, Sayyed, 182

Mohammad (son of Nasir Khan Lari), 212

Mohammad “Ali Aga Qajar Develu, 77, Mohammad Soltan Baluch, 123n

142 Mohammad Taher Beg Zand, 242 27 Mohammad Taqi Khan Golestana, 14-17, Mohammad ©Ali Khan of Jupar, 134-35 20, 25, 33-34, 44, 49, 51, 56, 305

Mohammad ©A1i Beg (governor of Lar), Mohammad Taqi Khan Boghayeri, 28

Mohammad “Ali Khan Zand, 199, 297 Mohammad Vali Khan (Zand?), 120 Mohammad Amin Khan Garusi, 89, 126, Mohammad Vali Khan Qajar Develu, 60,

131-32, 134 68-69, 76, 139

Mohammad Bastaki, Shaykh, 160 Mohammad Zaher Khan Bakhtyari, 134 Mohammad Beg Gorji Tupchi-bashi, 213, Mohammad Zaman Khan Shamlu, 93

280 Mohanna Montafeq, Shaykh, 183

Mohammad Beg Khurmuji, 156 Moharrazi island (Abadan), 164

80 Mohtaseb, 232, 234

Mohammad Beg Qajar Qoyunlu, 63, 73-74, Mohasses, 232-34

Mohammad Beg Shavi-zada, 191, 255 Molla Ahmad (secretary of the motasal-

Mohammad ebn ol-Hanafiya, shrine of, lem of Basra), 198

155 Molla ©Ali Shah (governor of Bandar

Mohammad Ebrahim Zand, 199 CAbbas), 117-19, 152-53, 159, Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 5, 258-59

9, 13, 35, 38, 40n, 48, 53, 60-61, Molla-bashi, 220 and note 63-79, 82, 86, 93, 103, 113-14, Molla Mandagar (village headman of 116, 119-20, 126-27, 137, 139-40, Fars), 103 142, 162, 184, 207, 211, 214, Mo'men Khan Bafqi, 124-25 226-27, 239-43, 251, 304, 307, Mongols, 124, 167

313, 315 Montafeq Arabs (Montafej), 162, 167-6,

Mohammad Hashem Zargar, 244 174, 176, 180, 182-83, 196-97, 266 Mohammad Hosayn Khan (governor of Bam Moore, Henry (East India Company

and Narmashir), 134 agent), 158, 170, 176-79, 252,

Mohammad Hosayn Khan Behbahani, 196-97 262-69

Mohammad Hosayn Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 35 Mogqim Khan Saru'i, 60-61

Mohammad Hosayn Khan Qaraguzlu, 225 Morley (East India Company employee),

Mohammad Hosayn Khan Zand Hazara, 93 264

Mohammad Khan Baluch, 161 Mortaza Qoli Khan (son of Shahrokh

Mohammad Khan Fayli, 187 Khan Afshar), 134

Mohammad Khan Qajar of Erivan, 3-4 Mortaza Qoli Khan Afshar, 105-6

Mohammad Khan Qajar Qoyunlu (cousin of Mortaza Qoli Khan Afshar Kusa-Ahmadlu,

Mohammad Hasan), 65 20, 56

Mohammad Khan Qajar Qoyunlu (uncle of Mortaza Qoli Khan Donboli, 91

Agha Mohammad), 137 Mortaza Qoli Khan of Jupar, 134-35 Mohammad Khan Shaterbashi, 27 137-38, 141, 143-46 Mohammad Khan Savadkuhi, 137, 142-43 Mortaza Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, Mohammad Khan Zand '"'Bi-kala,"' 31, 33-34, Mortaza Qoli Khan Zangana, 25

39-41, 43, 46, 51, 54-58, 60, 63, 118, Mosha¢sha‘, 32-33, 113, 162-63, 167-68

184, 194, 297 Moshtaq “Ali Shah NeCmatollahi, 221

Mohammad Pasha Baban, 185-87, 190-91 Moshtaq of Isfahan, 244 Mohammad Rafi° Khan Zand, 100-101 Mosques of Shiraz, 276, 278, 290

Mohammad Rafi° Tabrizi, 92 Mostafa III (Ottoman sultan), 187-88 Mohammad Rahim Khan Zand, 138, 294 Mostafa Khan Bigdeli Shamlu, 41-45, Mohammad Reza Beg (governor of Shushtar), 169

32, 33 Mostafa Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu,

Mohammad Reza Beg (sardar of Kerman), 125 137-38, 144-45, 300 Mohammad Reza Beg Qarachurlu, 27 Mostawf1, mostawfi ol-mamalek, 102,

Mohammad Reza Beg Zangana, 130 218, 232-33

Mohammad Reza Khan (raider at Kerman), Mosul, 83, 168, 188, 190

126 Motavalli (chief trustee of a vaqf;

Mohammad Reza Khan Afshar Qirqlu, 15 superintendent of a shrine), 220.

Mohammad Reza Khan Marandi, 88 See _also Solayman II Safavi Mohammad Reza Khan Qurchibashi, 42 Mozare© “Ali Kheshti, 30-31

336 Index Murcha Khurt (Murcha Khur), 22, 298 No“man Efendi (motasallem of Basra) ,

Musa Khan Afshar, 37 176n, 198

Musa Khan Zand, 100 Nur ©Ali Shah NeSmatollahi, 221

Muscat, 151, 154, 159-60, 266. See Nurollah, Sayyed (Indian envoy), 270 atso Oman

Oghuz Turks, 85

Nader Mirza Afshar, 207 Oman, 151, 158-59, 172, 205, 212, 271, Nader Shah Afshar, 1-4, 14, 18, 25, 32, 293; Imam of, 150, 152, 154, 158,

35, 91, 110, 117, 124, 138, 150-51, 160, 270; sends fleet to aid of 161, 167-68, 173, 194, 205, 209, ¢ Basra, 189-82, 271._ See also Muscat 210, 215-16, 218, 220, 224-25, _Omar (qazi-“askar of Azad Khan), 51 227-29, 234-35, 243-44, 272, 279-80, | (Omar Aga (Ottoman champion), 282

286-89, 292-94, 303, 305-7, 309-10, Omar Pasha, of Baghdad, 159, 163, 165,

312, 315 169, 171-74, 182, 185-89, 192,

Nadr Khan Zand, 62, 71, 79-80, 86-89, 253-54, 261

98, 101, 116n Opium, 102, 247, 292 Na'eb 215AlQshtoran, Na'in, ol-saltana, 130 Qthman Bu Naser16 Bani Kab, 113, Na'eb of Lahijan, 208, 220 Orzu'iya, 134-35

Najaf, 13, 171-72 c 162 c

Najaf Khan Kord Shadelu, 76, 107 Otobi Arabs (“Otub), 151 Najaf Mir Hasan Khan, 288 Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turks, 1-2, Najaf Qoli Khan Donboli, 83, 87-88, 13, 15, 18, 84, 157, 164-65, 167,

91-92, 224 171-72, 190-92, 194, 205, 209,

Najd, 247 268, 315

Najaf Qoli Khan Kalhor, 20, 39 211-12, 246, 248-49, 252-57, 265, Nakhchevan, 50, 84, 211-13, 253 Ottoman sultan and government (Sublime

Namaka, Qal°a, 141 Porte), 168-71, 187-92, 198, 211,

Nami, Mirza Mohammad Sadeq Musavi 213, 248, 252-57, 311-13 Esfahani, 244, 287, 303-4, 309-10,

314 Panah Khan Javanshir, 49, 67-68, 85, Naqib, 232-34 88-89, 92n, 94n, 105, 210-11 Naqi Khan Afshar Qasemlu, 48-49 Pari, 17-18, 39, 51, 200 Narmashir, 134, 206, 300 Pearls, 256

Nasaqchi, nasaqchi-bashi, 72, 280 Perdriau, Petro de (agent of the Naser Al Kathir, Shaykh, 106-7 Compagnie des Indes), 267-68 Naser ebn Mazkur, Shaykh of Bushire, Peria (Armenian-settled district near 120, 151, 154-57, 165, 177-80, 193, Isfahan), 240

247, 264-65, 268, 299-300 Persepolis, 300 Nasir Khan Baluch, 205 Persian Gulf, 117-18, 150-61, 163,

Nasir Khan Lari (Mir Shokr Nasir), 166-67, 172-73, 205, 242, 246-50, 57-61, 65, 71-72, 114, 117-22, 256-71, 310-11, 316; vessels and

125-26, 130, 150, 153-54, 157, fleets of, 150, 152, 154, 163, 159-61, 219, 257-58 168, 177, 180-82, 271 Nasrollah Khan Lari, 122n Persian Iraq (“Eraq-e ‘Ajam), 4-5,

Nasrollah Mirza Afshar (son of Nader 14-15, 24, 32-33, 62, 67, 86, 110,

Shah), 3 205, 228, 235, 242, 279, 281, 298

Nasrollah Mirza Afshar (son of Peter the Great, 249-50

Shahrokh Shah), 207 Peter III of Russia, 250 Nawkanda, 141 Pilgrim traffic, 171-72, 253, 286

Nazar ©Ali Khan Fayli, 112 Piracy, 150, 152, 161, 165, 258-59,

Nazar SAli Khan Zand, 69, 93, 98, 100, 264 104, 106, 108-9, 112-13, 115, 133-34, Pirault, Dr. (French consul), 268 139, 174, 186-87, 190, 198, 208, Pir Morad Khan Zand, 101

274, 281, 297 Pir Qoli Shambayati, 142

Nazar Ali Soltan Tekelu, 19 Pishkash (occasional tribute), 112,

Nazar Soltan_(Bakhtyari?), 105 228, 236 Nazer-e shar“iyat, 221 Plague, 170-71, 176, 195, 197, 238,

Nehavand, 33-34, 224 264-66 Ne“mat-ollahiya (Sufi order), 221 Pol-e Duzakh, 72 Nishapur, 8-9 Pol-e Shah, 33 Nomads, 223-26 Pol-e Zohab, 225

Index 337 Porte, Sublime. See Ottoman sultan and Radkan, 7 .

government Rafi* Khan SArab SAmeri, 126

Portuguese, 159, 256 Rafi* Khan Qajar Develu, 79, 87, 89, 139

Posht-e kuh region: of Kuhgiluya, 114; Rafiq of Isfahan, 244

of Luristan, 108, 112 Rafsenjan, 131, 134

Price, William (East India Company Rahdari (road toll), 248 agent), 163, 259-60 Rahm@nt {ship built for Nader Shah), Products, agricultural and industrial, 150, 154, 159-60, 180, 181n

247, 250, 256 Ra'is Ahmad Shah Tangestani, 58 Prostitutes, 286-87 Ramhormuz, 114 Ra's Halila, 180

Qa'ed Haydar of Ganava, 156 Rashid Beg Afshar Arashlu, 94

Qa'en, 3,229Rasht, Rashid36, Khan Afshar, 128-29 Qahriz, 66, 93, 207-8, 246-47, 249, Qajar dynasty, 77-78, 149, 215, 225, 251, 279 238, 243, 246, 251, 278, 281, 291, Ravar, 134

294, 301, 307, 309, 315 Rayen, 134

Qajars of Astarabad, 35-37, 62, 68, Raziya Bigom, 42n 75, 137, 145, 149, 207-9, 212, 224, Red Sea, 167, 249, 253 298-300; Ashagha-bash branch, 35, Refugees and expatriates, 170-73, 175,

76, 78, 140-41, 144; Develu clan, 237-40, 244, 306 137-38, 140-41, 144, 149, 219; Reis Efendi (Ottoman foreign minister), Ezz ol-Dinlu clan, 140; Qoyinlu 253 (Qavanlu) clan, 137-38, 141-42, Religious policy, 220-22, 283, 286, 144, 146, 219; Yukhari-bash branch, 293. See also Christians; Shi®a;

35, 76, 78; 137, 139-40, 144-46 Ulema

Qajars of Ganja. See Zeyad-oghlu Reza Qoli Khan (governor of Zarand), Qalamraw ©Ali Shakar. See Hamadan 126

Qalandar Khan Afghan, 68 Reza Qoli Khan Afshar, 91, 235

Qandahar, 3, 7, 300 Reza Qoli Khan of Ganja, 210

Qaputan Pasha (naval commander) of Reza Qoli Khan Kuhbanani, 134

Basra, 163, 165, 170, 177 Reza Qoli Khan Qajar Qoyunlu, 137 Qarabagh, 205, 209-11, 214 Reza Qoli Mirza (son of Nader Shah),

Qara Chaman, 85, 98 102 Qara Chowalan (Qal°a Chowalan), Reza Shah Pahlavi, 200, 277

185-87. See also Baban; Rika, 280, 286 Kurdistan Rish-safid (head of a guild), 234 Qaraguzlu, 15, 21, 26, 54, 225 Rostam Khan (kinsman of Shahrokh Khan Qaraja-dagh, 67, 84 Afshar), 126 Qara Su (Kermanshah), 40, 57 Rostam Khan Afshar Qasemlu, 91

Qara Tovara, 26 Rostam Soltan of Khesht, 58-59

Qars, 212 Rousseau, Jean-Francois-Xavier (French

Qasem of Sharja, Shaykh, 152 consul), 268-69

Qashqa'i, 62, 225 Rudsar, 66 Qawasem Arabs (Jawasem, Jawasmi), Russia, Russians, 1, 170-71, 205, 208 152-54, 158 208-12, 248-52, 265, 279, 311-13

Qaws (hot wind of lower Iraq), 180 Russia Company (British), 173, 249-S1,

Qazvin, 6, 14, 24, 36, 138, 241, 247, 311 272

Qeshm island, 152, 154, 159 Sab©a, 117, 126

Qizil Aghach (Astara), 67 Sabela, 162 Qizilbash, 19n, 49 Sabz ©Ali Khan Qajar Yukhari-bash, 60 Qobba (Kuba), 210 Sabz ©Ali Khan Shambayati, 76

Qobban, 161 Sabz SAli Khan Zand, 100-101, 107

Qoli barut-kub and Qoli tufang-saz, Sabz SAli Kord, 77

132 Sabz SAli Soltan Baluch, 123

Qom, 6, 14, 111, 200n, 223, 238, Sabzavar, 9-10

244, 247, 279 Sacd Al Kathir, Shaykh, 32-33, 106-7

Qomeshah (Shahreza), 24, 52-53, 94, Sadat-e Mir Salari tribe, 225 184, 279 Quhestan, 206

338 Index Sadeq Khan Zand, Mohammad, 18, 29, 31, Shahbaz Khan Donboli, 49, 57, 66, 68,

39, 51, 54n, 71, 75, 110, 115, 121, 70, 73, 79, 81, 83, 87-88, 92, 105,

127, 131, 156-57, 174-77, 179-83, 218

187, 189, 192-95, 197-99, 218, 232, Shahbaz Khan (Qaraguzlu?), 21

239, 247, 260-61, 266, 274, 277, Shah Cheragh, shrine of, 219

286, 297-98, 303-4 Shah Hosayn Khan Sirjani, 134

Sa©di, tomb of, 277 Shahiseven tribe, 15, 67, 69, 81, Sad o1-Din Pasha, of Baghdad, 169 86-87

Sa°dun, Shaykh of Bushire, 163, 259-60 Shah Mir Hamza, shrine of, 200n, 276 Safar ©Ali Aga (Khan) Qajar Qoyunlu, Shah Morad Beg Afshar Gunduzlu, 33

70, 73 Shah Morad Khan Zand, 299

Safar ©Ali Khan Zand, 54, 71 Shahpasand Khan Eshaqza'i, 9 Safavid dynasty, Safavid period, 124, Shahr-e Babak, 134-35 167, 172, 199,°205, 214-15, 238, Shahr-e Kord, 111

246, 272, 279, 281, 303, 306-10 Shahrezur, 188, 191 Safavid institutions, survival or Shahrokh Khan Afghan, 53 revival of, 1, 7, 12, 40-44, 91, Shahrokh Khan Afshar (governor of 104n, 205, 212, 214-18, 232-34, Kerman), 119, 124-27, 129-30, 135, 244, 279-80, 289, 294, 308-9 258 oafi Mirza (Safavid pretender), 91 Shahrokh Shah Afshar, 3, 5-10, 15, 21,

Safi ol-Din Ardabili, Shaykh, 21 124, 150, 207, 211, 255, 268, 309 Safi Yar Khan Afshar, 67 Shahryar Beg Afshar Gunduzlu, 85 Saheb-ekhteyar of Fars. See Mirza Shah Shoja° Mozaffari, 276-77 Mohammad Hosayn Shahverdi Khan Qajar Zeyadoghlu, 210-11 Saheb Soltan Khanom, 92 Shakh Nabat, 287 Saleh Darugha, of Shiraz, 29 Shamakhi, 212-13 saleh Khan (governor of Bana), 190 Shamil region, 120, 126 Saleh Khan Afshar Qirglu, 3 Shamkhal (chieftain of the Ghazi Saleh Khan Bayat, 4, 27-29, 33, 59, Qumug), 210-11, 213 Salim Khan Afshar Qirqlu, 15-17, 22, Sharaz, 83

117, 258 Shamlu tribe, 87

29, 31 Shatt ol-°Arab, 113, 155, 161-64,

51, 67, 184 196, 253

Salim Pasha (Khan) Baban, 20, 25-26, 167-68, 170, 174-76, 178, 180-82,

Saliyan, 210 Shaykh ©Ali Khan Zand, 18, 31, 45-46, Salman Al Bu Naser Bani Ka‘b, Shaykh, 51, 54-55, 63, 65, 69-72, 74-79, 162-65, 263. See also Banu Ka°b 86-90, 97, 99-101, 104, 109, 113,

Salmas, 91, 209 116, 118, 120, 137, 139, 235, 274; Sanandaj (Senna), 15, 20, 25-26, 184-86, blinding of, 99-100, 292, 297

191 Shaykh Morad Khan Zand, 87, 101

Sanitation and drainage, 277-78, 286 Shaykh ol-eslam, 220 Sarafraz Beg Khodabandalu, 15 Shaykh Ovays (Vays) Khan Zand, 298

Sardar (army commander, military Sheki, 50, 190, 210, 248

governor), 217 Shi°a, precepts and practices of, 13, Sardasht, 106 192, 220, 282 Sari, 60-61, 73-74, 139, 298 Shiraz, 13, 27-28, 31, 64, 69, 117, Sauj Bolaq (Azerbaijan), 91 122, 144, 154, 157, 174-75, 223, Sawghan, 134 225, 229, 234, 236, 238, 240-44, Sayd Morad Khan Zand, 299 247-48, 253, 255, 272-80, 282-83,

Sayf ebn Soltan II (Imam of Oman), 158 286, 290-91, 297-300 passim; as

Security of roads and cities, 282-83, capital, 74, 242-45, 272, 294;

285-86, 293-94 besieged by Mohammad Hasan Khan,

Seljuk dynasty, 124 71-72, 74, 103, 111, 113-14, 116; Semnan, 6, 139 captured by Agha Mohammad, 147,

Sergis, Kalantar, 239, 269 200, 275, 278n, 300 Seven Years’ War, 246, 258, 263 Shirvan, 190, 209-10, 248, 253 Shafi Khan Zand, 107-8 Shisha, Qal°a. See Shusha

Shaft, 207 Shokr ©Ali Khan Zand, 54 138, 220 Shushtar, 32, 101, 113, 162, 170 Shahbandar, 234, 248 Silakhur, 55, 70, 102, 108, 163

Shah ©Abd o1-°Azim, shrine of (Rayy), Shusha (Qal°a Shisha), 67-68, 210-11

Shahbaz Khan Bakaki, 98 Silk, silk goods, 167, 208, 242, 250, 252-53, 256, 260, 264

Index 339

Simbar, river, 5 Taqi Khan Bami, 126, 128

Simon, le Sieur (French secret agent), Taqi Khan Dorrani (Taqi Beg Soltan),

61, 67, 311, 313 128-34

Sirjan, 133-35 Taqi Khan Shirazi, Mohammad, 151, 272 Sistan, 2, 13, 125, 130, 205-6, 248 Tagi Khan Zand, 207 Skipp, George (East India Company Tarom, 126, 131

envoy), 261-62, 305 Tatars, 250

64 -

Slave trade, 208, 213, 247 Taxation, tax revenues, 2, 157, 210,

Sobhan Verdi Khan (vali of Ardalan) , 227-32, 235-36, 248, 257, 283, 287,

16, 24-25, 26n 291, 293

Sohrab Khan Gorji, 3-5, 213. Taymoraz (King of Kartli), 49-50, 68, Solayman Aqa (Pasha), motasallem of 210-11 Basra, 159, 169, 176, 179, 183, Ta°ziya (tashbih), 222

186, 192, 198, 260 Tehran, 13, 24, 241-42, 278, 298-300 Solayman Khan Qajar, 149 Tekelu tribe, 19n Solayman Mirza (Safavid pretender) , Thamer Nontateq, Shaykh, 176, 182, Solayman Pasha Baban, 25-26, 184-85 Thowayni Montafeq, Shaykh, 182

Solayman Pasha of Baghdad (Abu Tiflis, 209, 211, 213, 246

Layla), 40-43, 82-84, 168-69, Tigris, river, 167 Solayman Safavi, Shah, 6 Timur Lang (Tamerlane), 2, 35

171, 184-85 Timurids, 124

Solayman II Safavi (Mir Sayyed Timur Shah Dorrani, 300 Mohammad), 1, 3, 6-8, 36, 48, Tobacco, 247, 253

305-6, 309 Todtleben (Russian general), 212

Soltan ebn Ahmad (Imam of Oman), 160 Tofangchi, tufangchi (infantry musket-

Soltan Hosayn Safavi, Shah, 3, 14, eer), 51, 98, 279-81 42, 85, 158, 167, 207, 220, 225, Tonokabon, 208 249, 286, 294, 303, 307-8 Torab Khan Chakani Khorasani, 102-3, Soltan Hosayn II Safavi (pretender 233, 239 supported by ©Ali Mardan Khan Torab Khan of Nehdvand, 34, 62, 89

Bakhtyari), 41-45, 309 Torbat-e Haydariya, 3 Soltaniya, 5, 114, 122 Trade, 150-55, 159, 162, 165, 167,

Soltan Khaza‘el, Shaykh, 182 169, 172-73, 192, 246-71 passin,

Soltan Maydan, 139 292, 312; with Afghanistan, 248, Soltan Mohammad (son of the pre- 249n; with Britain and British tender Soltan Hosayn II), 45n India, 249-50, 256-67 (see also

Sorkha, 6 East India Company); with France, Sowayb, 174, 176, 197 256, 267-69; with India, 248-49,

Specie, export of, 248, 250-51, 253, 253, 270-71; with Netherlands and 260, 263, 292-93 East Indies, 256, 267, 269-70 (see Success (British cruiser), 177-78 also Dutch East India Company);

Suez, with248-49, Russia, 248-52; with Turkey, Sufis,253221 252-53 Transaraxia, 13, 50, 209-14, 250,

Tabas, 9, 206, 242n, 300 311-12, 314-15. See also Georgia; Tabriz, 5-6, 13, 15, 83, 85-87, 91, Qarabagh; Qobba; Russia 209, 247, 272, 274 Treaties: of Georgievsk, between Taher Khan Zand, 143, 290 Russia and Georgia, 24 July 1783,

Taher Soltan (governor of Isfahan), 212; of Kiichuk Qainarja, between

69 Russia and Turkey, 21 July 1774,

Tahmasb Safavi, Shah, 209 170, 187; of Kurdan (Kordan),

Tahmasb II Safavi (Tahmasb Mirza), between Turkey and Iran, 4 SeptemTahmaz (Tahmuz} Bani Ka‘b, Shaykh, between Russia and Iran, 1 February

1, 41n, 215 ber 1746, 188, 255; of Rasht, 162 1742, 251; between Shaykh Sa°dun of Tajabad, 130 Bushire and the East India Company

Takhta-kolah, 234 (as ratified by Karim Khan), 2 July Talesh, 259-60 Tangestan,67 154,1763, 157 Tun, 3

Taqi Khan Bafgqi, Mirza, 62, 120n, Turkey. See Ottoman Empire; Ottoman

126-27, 130, 132, 235-36, 281 sultan and government

340 Index Turkman (Turcoman), 36-37, 137, 142-43, Yusef Khan Afghan Hotaki, 67-68, 73

145-46; Goklen, 141, 146n; Yomud, Turkman Steppe, 137, 143, 146n Zagros mountains, 13, 17, 110, 205, Tyger (British vessel), 177, 264-66, Zahed-e Gilani, Shaykh, 21

74, 141, 146n Zaghach, 54

Tushmal, 19 248, 253, 288

267n Zakareya Khan, Zakariah, 19, 21-23, 30, 37 Bishop, 239

Ujan, 87 Zaki Khan Zand, 18, 79-80, 87, 97-100,

Ulema (Solama'), 214, 220-22, 276, 291, 103-5, 111-13, 115-16, 127, 139,

305, 308 141-42, 143, 144-45, 149, 158-61,

Urban functionaries (Sommal) and 163-64, 172, 199, 217, 219, 235-36, administration, 62, 92, 232-35, 262-63, 265, 271, 291, 293, 297-98,

286, 301 304; revolt of, 102-9, 194, 214,

Urmiya, 48-50, 67-68, 89-91, 98-99, 243 104, 113, 208, 234, 289-90 Zal Khan Kaplanoghiu, 82n

Usmi (chieftain of the Qaraqaytaq), Zaman Beg Qajar Ashagha-bash, 35

210-11, 213 Zaman Khan Afghan, 139

Uzbeks, 2, 5-6, 15, 27, 68, 72, 79 Zanburak (camel-mounted swivel gun), 128, 152, 280-81

Vafa of Qom, 244 Zand tribe, 16-19, 21, 25, 34, 37-38, Valashgard (Valashjerd), 19-21, 57 45-46, 54-55, 59-60, 62, 110-11, Vakil (title of Karim Khan), 215, 217; 142, 157, 163, 279, 281; Hazara Vakil ol-dawla, 7, 23, 215-16; Vakil branch, 93, 94n ol-khala'eq, 215; Vakil ol-ra“aya, Zangana tribe, 15-16, 20, 36, 38-39, vakil-e racaya, 215-16, 232-34, 294 55, 225, 279, 281

Vali (hereditary provincial governor), Zanjan, 5, 123 214; of ©Arabestan, 32, 162-63, 214, Zarand, 134

218, 236 (see also Khuzestan; Mosha® Zarda-kuh mountains, 30, 111

sha©); of Ardalan, 16, 171, 185, Zaydan, 115

190, 214, 218, 236 (see also Hasan Zeyad-oghlu (Zeyadlu) Qajars of Ganja, CAli Khan; Khosraw Khan; Kurdistan; 68, 210-11 Sobhan Verdi Khan); of Gorjestan, Zir-e Kuh (Kuhgiluya), 114

212 (see also Erekle II; Georgia); Zobayr, al-, 176, 196-97

of Luristan, 21n, 111 (see also Zohab, 187, 225, 281

Esma°il Khan Fayli) Zoroastrians, 125 Vali Khan Zand, 76, 143 122-23, 191, 298

Vali Khan Afshar, 124 Zu'l-Feqar Khan Afshar Irlu, 105,

Vand tribes, 15, 20, 55, 225, 279 Vaqf, awqaf, 8, 171, 220, 228 Varamin, 111

Vazir (manager of government estates), 232-33

Vazir-e divan, 102, 218, 233, 256n Vehbi Efendi, Sunbulzade, 187-88, 254 Voinovich, Count, 252 Volynskii (Russian ambassador), 249

Weapons, 247, 280-82 Wine, 247, 256 Wood, Francis (East India Company

agent), 156, 259 Wool, woollen goods, 247, 256, 263-64, 268

Wrench (East India Company agent), 165

Yablonskii (Russian consul), 252, 269 Yarut'iun (Armenian of Basra), 193 Yazd, 13, 62, 124-27, 130, 247, 274, 279, 299

Yemen, 237

Yusef ©Ali Khan Jalayer, 8