Iran fell apart; Mahmood was a warrior but not a king, and Iranians disobeyed him; there was chaos and Peter the Great of Russia occupied Derbent in Northern Iran, then Rasht and Baku. This was the first time that Russia, which was then beginning to develop into a well organized country with expansionist ideas, waged war against Iran, but it was not the last of wars between the two countries.
At the same time, while the Afghans were still in power, the Ottomans occupied Tabriz. Iran was about to collapse, when fate took another turn for the better. Nader, a brave soldier of the Afshar tribe found a surviving Safavid prince, called him Tahmasb (or Tahmasp) II, became his commander-in chief, gathered an army in his name, and in a succession of lightning attacks defeated and threw out the Afghans. Then, not finding the king capable, Nader replaced him with Abbas III who soon died and this time Nader proclaimed himself as the Shah of Persia and founded the Afshar dynasty (l736 AD). Nader was a brave soldier but a merciless tyrant. In 1747 AD his closest people entered into a plot and assassinated him. Though his loss at that time was somewhat a relief to the nation, to him must be given the credit of saving and uniting Iran at a critical moment in its history.
In 1750 AD, Karim Khan zand founded a dynasty in the southern regions which he eventually extended to cover most of the present day Iran, but he left Nader's descendants alone and let them continue to rule in Khorassan out of respect for Nader and his achievements.
In the meantime, among the Turkomans of northern Iran the brave Qajar tribe was establishing a dynasty and kingdom. Qajars and Karim Khan were constantly at war until finally Karim Khan subjugated the tribe and took as hostage Agha Mohammad Khan, the son of the tribe's chief.
Karim Khan was a modest and gentle man and ruled with justice and compas sion, though in battle he was a courageous and fierce soldier. He never called himself a king, preferring the title of "Vakil-oI-Roaya" (the representative of the people) or more simply the Vakil. It is said that he insisted on his people being joyful, and that from the terrace of his palace, overlooking the town below, he watched the town at nights and felt happy to see all the houses and streets well-lighted and to hear his bands of musicians play at every major cross-road of the town. The Vakil is perhaps the best-loved ruler of the entire history of Iran, admired both by the Iranians of his time and by the generations that have followed, except for his enemies the Qajars and in particular Agha Mohammad Khan who later overcame Karim Khan's successors and showed incredible hatred towards Karim Khan and his household, even to his memory.
Because Agha Mohammad was impotent this hatred is generally explained by his having been castrated by Karim Khan's men - with or without the latter's knowledge. But this has not been definitely proved, and some historians claim Agha Mohammad Khan accidentally lost his manhood when he fell from a horse and the horse trampled on him. Whatever the reason, this king was bitter and merciless. It is said that no one ever saw him smile - let alone laugh. His face aged very early because of his physical conditions and his voice was feminine; yet he commanded great respect and fear in his subjects. In the East his case, if not the only one of its kind, must have been a most rare occurrence: a tribe priding themselves on their manhood and virility accepting a eunuch as a ruler.
Despite his character and his cruelties, and perhaps because of them, his enemies succumbed rapidly to him, and where they did resist they paid dearly for it. One instance: In Kerman he ordered that twenty thousand pairs of eyes of the whole population of the town, in fact - should be gouged out; and then he had some of these blinded people hanged, strangled, beheaded, or chopped up alive. Soon, however, he reunited the whole of Iran the present day Iran plus Afghanistan and some pads of the present republics to the north of Iran. He despised Catherine, the Empress of Russia, because of her interference in Iran's northern provinces. He attacked Russian territories and easily captured Tiflis and Erivan and planned to eventually capture Moscow as well. Some historians believe he would have, had he remained alive; but he was assassinated by members of his entourage the night before he intended to move his army northwards. He was killed during the night (1797 AD) just as Nader had been killed before him. A poet has said about Nader, and it aptly applies to Agha Mohammad Khan as well And so died Iran's last conqueror! And from then onwards Iran entered, or rather was dragged into, the international political scene with all its intrigues. The British, hoping to use Iran and Afghanistan as barriers cutting off Russia from British India, began to gradually establish themselves at the Iranian court. Napoleon's France came to help Fath Ali Shah, Agha Mohammad Khan's successor, to oust the British. The Russians wanted to get to the "warm waters" of the Persian GuIf. The hitherto feudalistic Iran, which had continued along the same political and daily ways of life for centuries, unbothered by developments in the rest of the world, suddenly found itself in the middle of staggering circumstances over which it had no control. Struck by the immensity of the scientific and technical advances made by Europe, and ignorant of the ways of handling Europeans and their diplomatic intrigues, the Iranian was baffled, and the two powers made good use of the situation. Russians attacked and took extensive territories in northern Iran, defeating the Iranian army which was still fighting with swords and hand- made rifles against the recently modernized Russian army equipped with the latest guns and cannons. Iranians were morally shaken and perhaps for the first time in their history, lost their self-confidence. Later, the Russians stopped further aggressions, because of changes in their policy and British diplomatic manoeuvres. Instead, the two powers agreed to divide the country into two spheres of influence: the Russians in the northern parts of Iran and the British in the southern regions. From then onwards, until the "Constitutional Uprising" (19O6), the Iranian kings, ministers and statesmen were nothing but puppets in the hands of the two powers.
In 1906, however, just a short time before his death, Mozaffar al-Din Shah accorded Iranians the right of a Constitution with a proper parliament, and limitations on the powers of the monarch. However, a year or so later Mohammad Ali Shah abolished the Constitution hut soon had to give in when faced with the nationalist uprising of 1908. The Constitution was restored and Iran truly set foot into the modern age.
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