Agha Mohammad Khan

Agha Mohammad Khan (1742 – June 17, 1797) was the chief of a Turkic tribe, the Qajars. He became shah of Persia in 1794 and established the Qajar dynasty. He was succeeded by his nephew, Fath Ali Shah Qajar.

Born in 1742, he was castrated by family enemies at the age of five. Despite being a eunuch, he became the chief of his tribe in 1758. In 1762 he was captured by a rival tribe and sent to Shiraz as a prisoner to Karim Khan's court. Agha Muhammad spent the next 16 years as a hostage, until he escaped in 1779. That same year, the death of the shah Karim Khan plunged the country into a series of civil wars and disputes over the succession, with many members of the Zand dynasty acceding to the Peacock Throne in the space of only ten years. Agha Muhammad took the opportunity to launch a rebellion which, in 1794, succeeded in capturing Lotf Ali Khan, the last Zand ruler. Two years later he proclaimed himself Shahanshah (King of Kings).

In 1795 he ravaged Georgia, a Christian kingdom to the north of Persia. In the same year he also captured Khorasan. Shah Rukh, ruler of Khorasan and grandson of Nadir Shah, was tortured to death because Agha Muhammad thought that he knew of Nadir's legendary treasures.

In 1796 Agha Muhammad moved his capital from Sari to Tehran. He was the first Persian ruler to make Tehran, then only a village, his capital. Although the Russians took Derbent and briefly occupied Baku during the Persian Expedition of 1796, he successfully expanded Persian influence into the Caucasus, reasserting Iranian sovereignty over its former dependencies in the region. He was, however, a notoriously cruel ruler, who reduced Tbilisi to ashes and massacred its Christian population.

Ahga Muhammad was assassinated in 1797 after about 16 years in power. A legend has it that at the night of his death, Agha Mohammad Khan ordered one of his servants to bring him a melon, threatening him that should the melon be bitter he would decapitate him; the servant poisoned the melon out of fear, thereby killing the Persian shah.

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