Originally Turkoman nomads descended from Qizilbash emirs, the Qajars ruled over Astarabad in northwest Iran from 1750. Their leader, Agha Muhammad Khan (1779-1797), took over power in Persia (with the bloody removal of the land in Kerman in 1794, and of the Afsharids in Mashhad in 1796), united the nation, and adopted the title of shah in 1796. His nephew, Fath Ali Shah (1797-1834), was already under enormous pressure from the British following military defeats by Russia (1813 and 1828, involving loss of the Caucasus); Persia became the object of opposing British and Russian interests. Under Nasir al-Din Shah (1848-1896) the economy was controlled by British monopolies and concessions (railways, telegraph), which led to an ongoing conflict with the bourgeois opposition and a call for a reduction in the ruler's power.

The British tobacco monopoly led to unrest in 1890 and a parliamentary battle for a modernistic constitution, which was enforced in 1906 against Shah Muzaffar al-Din (1896-1907).ln 1908 there was a popular uprising in Tehran due to the storming of the parliament by the shah's Cossack brigade. The powerless last Qajars, Ahmed Mirza (1909-1925), had to accept the occupation of further parts of Persia by the British and Russians (leading to a British protectorate in 1919), as well as revolts by the Shiites in the south. In 1925 he was deposed by the powerful Prime Minister Reza Khan Pahlawi, who made himself Shah of Persia.

The ruling members of the Qajars dynasty

Agha Muhammad Khan (1796-1797)
Fath Ali Shah (1797-1834)
Mohammad Shah Qajar (1834-1848)
Nasser-al-Din Shah (1848-1896)
Mozzafar-al-Din Shah (1896-1907)
Mohammad Ali Shah (1907-1909)
Ahmad Shah Qajar (1909-1925)

The heads of the deposed house

Mohammad Hassan Mirza
Hamid Kadjar
Mohammad Hassan Mirza II