Rarely seen images of female music groups in the Qajar period

The Qajar rulers were members of the Karagöz, or “Black-Eye,” sect of the Qajars, who themselves were members of the Qajars (tribe) or “Black Hats” lineage of the Oghuz Turks. The Qajars first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qizilbash tribes that supported the Safavids. The Safavids “left Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to local Turkic khans”, and “in 1554 Ganja was governed by Shahverdi Soltan Ziyadoglu Qajar, whose family came to govern Karabakh in southern Arran”. Qajars filled a number of diplomatic missions and governorships in the 16th–17th centuries for the Safavids. The Qajars were resettled by Shah Abbas I throughout. The great number of them also settled in Astarabad (present-day Gorgan) near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea, and it would be this branch of Qajars that would rise to power.

May 9, 2023 | 8:48 pm