Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar (; 14 March 1742 – 17 June 1797), also known by his regnal name of Agha Mohammad Shah (), was the founder of the Qajar dynasty of Iran, ruling as Shah from 1789 to 1797.
He was the son of Mohammad Hasan Khan, a chieftain of the Quwanlu branch of the Qajar tribe who vied for the throne of Iran after the death of Nader Shah. As a child, he was captured by Nader's successor Adel Shah and castrated. His father was killed in 1759, and in 1763 he was captured by Karim Khan Zand, Iran's new overlord. He spent the next sixteen years as a hostage at Karim Khan's court in Shiraz; after the latter's death, he escaped to northern Iran, where he spent nearly a decade campaigning to consolidate his rule, struggling with his brothers and several Zand pretenders. He took control of all northern Iran and in 1786 made Tehran his capital; it has since remained the country's capital.
Agha Mohammad Khan was enthroned as the king of Iran in 1789 (but not yet crowned), and in 1794 he defeated his last major competitor, the Zand prince Lotf Ali Khan, inflicting immense destruction on the city of Kerman after taking it. In 1796, he campaigned to reassert Iranian rule north of the Aras River, where he forced the local khanates into submission and brutally sacked the Georgian city of Tiflis (Tbilisi). He was then crowned shāhanshāh (King of Kings) in 1796. On 17 June 1797, during a second campaign in the South Caucasus, he was assassinated by two of his servants whom he had condemned to death. He was succeeded by his nephew and designated heir, Fath-Ali, whose descendants ruled Iran until 1925.
Agha Mohammad Khan's reign is noted for the return of a centralized and unified Iran and for relocating the capital to Tehran. He is noted for his cruel and rapacious behavior, particularly during his Georgia and Kerman campaigns. However, he has also been described as a "pragmatic, calculating, and shrewd military and political leader."
Early life (1742–1779)
Family and youth
thumb|right|300px|The landscape of [[Gorgan|Astarabad, the birthplace of Agha Mohammad Khan.]]
Agha Mohammad Khan was born in Astarabad around 1742. He belonged to the Quwanlu (also spelled Qawanlu) branch of the Qajar tribe. The Qajars were one of the original Turkoman Qizilbash tribes that emerged and spread in Asia Minor around the tenth and eleventh centuries. They later supplied power to the Safavids since the dynasty's earliest days. When Morteza Qoli learned of this, he marched to Babol on 1 January 1781 with an army of Turkmens and released Agha Mohammad Khan. Agha Mohammad Khan and Reza Qoli were initially reconciled, but the latter was still discontented and fled to Ali-Morad Khan in Isfahan, and then to Sadeq Khan Zand in Shiraz. He died in Khorasan, and his former supporters went over to Agha Mohammad's side and fought with him against Morteza Qoli, who sought to take Mazandaran. Agha Mohammad defeated his brother but agreed to let him rule Astarabad and collect revenue from several districts in Mazandaran
Peace did not last long. Ali-Morad Khan soon invaded Mazandaran, which led Agha Mohammad Khan to march from Babol with an army of Mazandaranis and Qajars and attack Ali-Morad Khan, whom he managed to repel from the province. Agha Mohammad Khan then seized Qumis, Semnan, Damghan, Shahrud and Bastam. Furthermore, he also made Hedayat-Allah Khan, the ruler of Gilan, his vassal. He thereafter granted land in Semnan to his brother Ali Qoli as a reward for his help in the conquest of the cities.
First conflict with the Russians, dispute with Gilan, and the invasion of northern Persian Iraq
In 1781, the Russian Empire, which was interested in building a trade route with Iran in order to be able to trade with regions deep into Asia, sent an emissary under Marko Ivanovich Voinovich to the coast of Gorgan, where he arrived on 10 August and sought approval to build a trading-post at Ashraf. When Agha Mohammad Khan refused, Voinovich ignored his refusal and went on to establish an interim settlement on Ashurada island. With no ships, Agha Mohammad Khan was unable to retake the island. Instead, he tricked Voinovich and some of his men into meeting him at Astarabad for a banquet on 26 December, where they were held as captives until Voinovich agreed to order his men to leave Ashurada on 13 January 1782.
A year later Agha Mohammad Khan invaded Gilan, because its ruler Hedayat-Allah had changed his allegiance to the Zand dynasty. Hedayat-Allah then sent two diplomats, Mirza Sadeq and Agha Sadeq Lahiji, to Agha Mohammad to make peace. As a precaution he went to Shirvan. The diplomats were unable to come to favorable terms with Agha Mohammad Khan, who raided Gilan's capital Rasht and seized its riches. Rejoicing in his victory, he sent his brother Jafar Qoli Khan to conquer the northern part of Persian Iraq. He defeated a Zand army in Ray (or Karaj), and thereafter seized Qazvin. He then marched to Zanjan, which he also seized.In autumn they returned to Mazandaran. In the spring of 1783, Agha Mohammad Khan besieged Tehran, a town under Zand control which had proved troublesome. During the siege, plague started spreading in the town, and thereafter to Agha Mohammad Khan's army camp outside the city, which forced him to lift the siege. He marched back to Ali Bolagh, a summer house near Damghan. Agha Mohammad Khan then returned to Mazandaran and spent the winter there. to Mazandaran in June 1784, aiming to crush the Qajars once and for all. His 15-year-old son Sheikh Veis Khan was put in command of the army, with Ali Morad staying behind in Tehran. Sheikh Naser II managed to establish control over Dashtestan, Kharg and Bandar Rig. He also attempted to take Khesht from January to June 1792, but his attempt to capture it failed and he returned to Bushehr on 27 June.
His advisors divided, Heraclius II ignored the ultimatum but sent couriers to Saint Petersburg. The Russian general Gudovich, who sat in Georgievsk at the time, had been instructed to avoid "expense and fuss". Heraclius II, together with Solomon II and some Imeretians headed southwards of Tbilisi to fend off the Iranians.
thumb|right|The capture of [[Tbilisi by Agha Mohammad Khan. A Qajar-era Persian miniature from the British Library.]]
At the same time, Agha Mohammad Khan marched directly on Tbilisi, with half of the army with which he had crossed the Aras river. Some estimate his army had 40,000 men instead of 35,000. They attacked the heavily fortified Georgian positions of Heraclius II and Solomon on the southwestern limits of the city. Abandoned by several of his nobles, Heraclius II managed to mobilize around 5,000 troops, including some 2,000 auxiliaries from the neighbouring Imereti under its King Solomon II, a member of the Georgian Bagrationi dynasty and thus distantly related to Heraclius II. The Georgians offered a desperate resistance and succeeded in rolling back a series of Iranian attacks on 9 and 10 September. After that, it is said that some traitors informed the Iranians that the Georgians had no more strength to fight and the Qajar army cancelled their plan of returning to Iran. Early on 11 September, Agha Mohammad Khan personally led an all-out offensive against the Georgians. Amid an artillery duel and a fierce cavalry charge, the Iranians managed to cross the Kura River and outflanked the decimated Georgian army. Heraclius II attempted to mount a counterattack, but he had to retreat to the last available positions in the outskirts of Tbilisi. By nightfall, the Georgian forces had been exhausted and almost completely destroyed. The last surviving Georgian artillery briefly held the advancing Iranians to allow Heraclius II and his retinue of some 150 men to escape through the city to the mountains. The fighting continued in the streets of Tbilisi and at the fortress of Narikala. In a few hours, Agha Mohammad Khan was in full control of the Georgian capital, which was then completely sacked and its population massacred. The Iranian army marched back laden with spoil and carrying off some 15,000 captives. The Georgians had lost 4,000 men in the battle, the Iranians 13,000, a third of their total force.
thumb|270px|The [[Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad.]]
Agha Mohammad Shah first marched to Astarabad, and penalized the Turkmens who had been pillaging the city and its surroundings. He then continued to Mashhad, where the local chieftains, who knew it was hopeless to resist, swiftly acknowledged his rule. Agha Mohammad Shah also demanded these local chieftains to dispatch him hostages, who were sent to Tehran. When Agha Mohammad Shah reached Mashhad, Shahrokh, along with a prominent mujtahid named Mirza Mehdi, went to the Qajar encampment. There they were warmly received by Agha Mohammad Shah's nephew Hossein Qoli Khan.
Shortly afterwards, Agha Mohammad Shah sent a force of 8,000 soldiers under Soleyman Khan Qajar, followed by Mirza Mehdi, to conquer Mashhad and affirm its citizens of the Shah's generosity. A day later, Agha Mohammad Shah, followed the customary of the famous Iranian shah Abbas the Great, and entered Mashhad on 14 May A number of Shahrokh's servants, who were struck with misery for their previous monarch, sent an admired mullah of the city to make an emotional appeal to Agha Mohammad Shah in support of Shahrokh and Shahrokh was sent to Mazandaran with his family. Shahrokh died at Damghan due to the injuries he had suffered during his torture.
Rest of reign
Agha Mohammad Khan restored Iran to a unity it had not had since Karim Khan. He reunited the territory of contemporary Iran and the Caucasus region which had been part of the concept of Iran for centuries. He was, however, a man of extreme violence who killed almost all who could threaten his hold on power, a trait he showed in several of his campaigns. A year after Agha Mohammad Khan re-subjugated the Caucasus, he also captured Khorasan. Shah Rukh, ruler of Khorasan and grandson of Nader Shah, was tortured to death because Agha Mohammad Khan thought that he knew of Nader's legendary treasures.
In 1786, Agha Mohammad Khan moved his capital from Sari in his home province of Mazandaran to Tehran. He was the first Iranian ruler to make Tehran—the successor to the great city of Ray—his capital, although both the Safavids and the Zands had expanded the town and built palaces there. One of the main reasons noted for moving the capital farther south was to remain in close reach of Azerbaijan and Iran's integral Caucasian territories in the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, at that time not yet ceded to Imperial Russia, their fate in the course of the 19th century. He was formally crowned in 1796 and founded the Qajar dynasty.
Although the Russians briefly took and occupied Derbent and Baku during the expedition of 1796 under the command of Count Valerian Zubov, Agha Mohammad Khan successfully expanded Iranian 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, while massacring and carrying away its Christian population, much as he had done with his Muslim subjects. He based his strength on tribal manpower like Genghis Khan, Timur and Nader Shah.
- Maryam Khanom, a Jew from Mazandaran; married Fath-Ali Shah Qajar after his death
- Asiya Khanom, daughter of Mohammad Khan Ezzeddinlu Qajar, former wife of Hossein Qoli Khan Qajar, and mother of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar