Karim Khan Zand

Karim Khan Zand کریم خان زند
Vakil-i Ra'aya (Deputy of the People)
Contemporary portrait of Karim Khan Zand.
Vakil-i Ra'aya of Iran
Reign	1751 – 1 March 1779
Successor	Mohammad Ali Khan
Born	ca. 1705 Pari, Malayer, Iran
Died	1 March 1779 Shiraz, Fars, Iran
Burial	Pars Museum, Shiraz
Consorts	Khadijeh Begum Shakh-e Nabat
Issue	Mohammad Rahim Abol Fath Khan Mohammad Ali Khan Ibrahim Khan Salih Khan
Dynasty	Zand dynasty
Father	Inaq Khan Zand
Mother	Bay Agha
Religion	Twelver Shia Islam

Mohammad Karim Khan Zand (Persian: کریم خان زند‎, translit. Mohammad Karīm Khān-e Zand‎), better known as Karim Khan Zand (کریم خان زند), was the founder of the Zand Dynasty, ruling from 1751 to 1779. He ruled all of Iran except for Khorasan. He also ruled over some Caucasian lands and occupied Basra for some years.

While Karim was ruler, Iran recovered from the devastation of 40 years of war, providing the war ravaged country with a renewed sense of tranquility, security, peace, and prosperity. The years from 1765 to Karim Khan's death in 1779 marked the zenith of Zand rule. During his reign, relations with Britain were restored, and he allowed the East India Company to have a trading post in southern Iran. He made Shiraz his capital and ordered the construction of several architectural projects there.

Following Karim Khan's death, civil war broke out once more, and none of his descendants were able to rule the country as effectively as he had. The last of these descendants, Lotf Ali Khan, was killed by Qajar ruler Agha Mohammad Khan, who became the sole ruler of Iran.

Karim Beg belonged to the Zand tribe, a small and little-known tribe of Laks, a branch of Lurs who may have been originally Kurdish. The Zands were concentrated on the villages of Pari and Kamazan in the Malayer district, but were also found roaming in the central Zagros ranges and the countryside of Hamadan. Karim Beg was born in ca. 1705 in the village of Pari, then part of the Safavid Empire. He was the eldest son of a certain Inaq Khan Zand, and had 3 sisters, a brother named Mohammad Sadiq Khan, and two half-brothers named Zaki Khan and Iskandar Khan Zand. In 1722, the Safavid Empire was on the verge of collapsing—Isfahan and most of central and east Iran had been seized by the Afghan Hotak dynasty, while the Russians had conquered many cities in northern Iran. Around the same time, the Ottoman Empire took advantage of Iran’s decadence to conquer a large number of western frontier districts. There they faced bold opposition from the local clans, including the Zands, who under the chief Mehdi Khan Zand harassed their forces and stopped them from advancing further into Iran.