Qajar (tribe)

The Qajars (Persian: ایل قاجار, romanized: Ēl-i Qājār; Azerbaijani: قاجارلار, romanized: Qacarlar) are a clan of the Bayat tribe of the Oghuz Turks. The tribe lived in the area that is now Armenia, Azerbaijan and Northwestern Iran. Some, including Olson, consider them to be a tribal subgroup of Iranian Azerbaijanis. By the end of the Safavid era, the Qajars had split into several factions. These included the Ziyādoghlu (Ziādlu), associated with the area of Ganja and Yerevan, as well as the Qoyunlu (Qāvānlu), and Davālu (Devehlu) the latter two associated with the northern areas of contemporary Iran. In 1796, Agha Mohammad Khan, a Qajar chief of the Qoyunlu branch, was crowned Shah of Iran, founding the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Iran until 1925. American anthropologist Richard Weeks also notes that some Iranian Azerbaijanis, depending on their place of residence, use the designation Qajar.