Каджар нояан

[Taragai-Barlas]

There is still another tradition, one favored by Qajar (Kadjar) princes themselves, that the Qajar (Kadjar) shahs are descendants of Qajar Noyan son of the Mongol general Sertaq Noyan son of Saba Noyan.(7) Sertaq Noyan was reputedly the tutor (atabeg, later in Persian "atabak") of either the Il-Khan Arghun Khan (1284 - 1291) or of Mahmoud Ghazan Khan (1295 - 1304) his son. Hassan Fassa'i, the chronicler of the early Qajar (Kadjar) shahs says that "[t]he most venerable Qajars are the descendants of Qajar Nuyan son of the Mongol Sertaq Nuyan ... When the descendants of Qajar Nuyan increased in number, they and all the different branches of the tribes were called "Qajar" after their ancestor." (Heribert Busse, op. cit., p. 1)(8) This genealogy, however, is a late tradition of nineteenth century Qajar (Kadjar) historiographers and difficult to establish with certainty. It is this alleged genealogy that allows for the quip that Qajars (Kadjars) are really Mongols, with the implication that they are thus not Iranians (read not Aryans!)

There is really no need to address the racist aspect of this comment about the Qajars (Kadjars), other than to indicate that the assertion of the Mongol origin may not be correct, not in order to defend against the charge of non-Iranianness of the Qajars (Kadjars), but to set the record straight on their true origins. Even assuming that the above genealogy were correct, and one of the ancestors of the ruling house was indeed of Mongol blood, this does not establish the origin of the entire Qajar (Kadjar) tribe as Mongol, as the tribe precedes the appearance of this ancestor by centuries, nor that the ruling house is of Mongol origin, as there are scarcely any other links with individuals of Mongol origin beside that of the above named Qajar Noyan. If anything, the Qajar (Kadjar) ruling house has in its immediate ancestry Safavid blood on the paternal side, a point implied in the deeper meaning of Soltan Ali Mirza Kadjar's remark that the Qajars (Kadjars) considered themselves the true heirs of the Safavids, and on the maternal side the Qajar (Kadjar) ruling house has Qajar (Kadjar) blood going back as far as records were kept, in that the mothers of the chiefs of the Qajar (Kadjar) clans were mostly Qajar (Kadjar) and that those of the rulers most certainly had to be.(9)

The immediate ancestor of the Qajars (Kadjars) is Shah Qoli Khan Qajar Qovanlu (Qoyanlu) of the Qovanlus of Ganja, who, when the Qajars of Ganja moved east to Gorgan, married into the Qovanlu Qajars of Astarabad (Esterabad). His son was Fath Ali Khan Qajar, born ca. 1685-6 or 1692-3.(10) Fath Ali Khan's base was Astarabad and he was a renowned military commander in his time. He served as military commander under two Safavid shahs, Shah Soltan Hossein (1694 - 1722) and Shah Tahmasp II (1722 - 1732). In gratitude for his loyal and courageous service to the Safavids, Shah Soltan Hossein is reputed to have given Fath Ali Khan Qajar a wife from his own harem, Emineh(11), the daughter of Hossein Qoli Aqa, himself a descendant of Yaqub Soltan Qajar.(12) It is said that this wife was pregnant by the king at the time she was given to Fath Ali Khan, a fact he reputedly was aware of but decided to take as an even greater honor bestowed on him by his king. He not only accepted her as his first wife and queen, as he already was a local ruler, but also is said to have declared her child to be his and his heir.(13) This child was named Mohammad Hassan Khan Qajar, the future father of Agha Mohammad Khan and Hossein Qoli Khan ("Djahansouz Shah") Qajar.(14)

The fact that the father of the first Qajar (Kadjar) shah and the grand-father of the second Qajar (Kadjar) shah was possibly the son of Shah Soltan Hossein Safavi, complicates the lives of those who would deny the Qajars (Kadjars) their claim to be the legitimate heirs of the Safavids tremendously. In fact the Qajar (Kadjar) rulers are doubly legitimate. Once because they can claim descendancy from the Safavids through Shah Soltan Hossein and Mohammad Hassan Khan Qajar, and once because they earned the right to wear the Kiani crown by virtue of the force of their will to bring it about against all odds. Despite this double legitimacy and their own awareness of this fact, the Qajar (Kadjar) rulers chose not to make their parentage the issue, but rather chose to emphasize their clan and their own achievement of kingship in their own right. They had achieved great things on their own, without needing the added claim to Safavid blood.(15)

For one, while serving Shah Tahmasp II, Fath Ali Khan first earned the title of E'temad-ed-Dowleh and later the title of Vakil-ed-Dowleh. Gavin Hambly writes about these events as follows:

The grant of the title and office of Vakil-al-Daula confirmed that Fath Ali Khan was the real power in Tahmasp's camp and set a precedent followed on several later occasions: Nadir Khan Afshar adopted the same title in 1144-45/1732, when he replaced Tahmasp with the eight-month-old 'Abbas III; 'Ali Mardan Khan Bakhtiyari assumed it in 1163-4/1750 on behalf of Isma'il III; and Karim Khan Zand likewise, on behalf of the same figure-head a year later. (Op. cit., p. 108)

It was thus a Qajar (Kadjar) chieftain, Fath Ali Khan, who first held the title for which Karim Khan Zand later became so famous. For another, they had conquered all their domestic foes and even their foreign ones and reestablished the boundaries of the Safavid empire and crowned themselves Shahanshahs (emperors) of Persia.

 

http://www.qajarpages.org/qajorigins.html