‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎289v] (585/722)

the darkness and confusion of night time. He waited till morning, and
then found that he had been deceived ; and that, instead of realising
the fruits of his victory, he must fly to Khurasan. In 1795 his
career was brought to a close. For four months he maintained an
obstinate resistance in the city of Karman, where one of his most trusted
supporters admitted the enemy to the citadel. On this occasion Agha
Muhammad Khan had surrounded the whole city’of Karman with troops,
and posted a strong force at every gateway. Nevertheless, Lutf Ah'
Khan crossed the ditch on some loose planks, and succeeded in cutting
his way through the enemy and escaping to Nurmanshahr. The rage of
Agha Muhammad Khan at the escape of his rival w r as beyond expression.
He wreaked his vengeance upon the unfortunate people of Karman in a
manner which is almost unparalleled in history. He deprived seven
thousand men of their eyesight. A still greater number were slain.
Twenty thousand women and children were distributed as slaves to the
brutal soldiers. For three months the city was abandoned to the troops,
who were not only permitted, but encouraged, to perform the most bloody
and shameless atrocities that can disgrace human nature. At length
Lutf AH Khan fell into the hands of the Kajar. A chief of Nurmanshahr
gave him as a ransom for his brother, who had fallen into the hands of
Agha Muhammad Khan ; and Lutf AH Khan was overpowered by numbers,
and carried into the camp of the Kajar, where Agha Muhammad Khan
tore out the eyes of his rival with his own hands, and subjected him to the
most horrible indignities. In this state of agony Lutf AH Khan was
carried to Tihran, and was put to death by the bow-string at the early age
of twenty-four; whilst Agha Muhammad Khan ordered nine hundred pris
oners to be decapitated for the special purpose of commemorating the
downfall of the Zand dynasty by the erection of a pyramid of skulls on the
spot where Lutf AH Khan was captured. This pyramid was seen by Sir
Henry Pottinger in 1810.
Such was the end of the Zand dynasty, which ruled over the greater part
of Persia for nearly half a century, but possessed no stability after the death
of its founder, Karim Khan. Its downfall is to be attributed to two
causes—first, their internal divisions, and secondly, the genius of their
enemy, Agha Muhammad Khan.
The death of Lutf AH Khan, the last sovereign of the Zand dynasty,
and the accession of Agha Muhammad Khan as the founder of the new
dynasty of the Kajars, naturally led to the transfer of the capital of the
Persian empire from Shiraz to Tihran. The reason for this transfer is
obvious. The strength of the Zand dynasty depended upon the Persian
nomads to the west, and perhaps on the power of the Arabs to the south;
and consequently Isfahan and Shiraz proved convenient capitals during the
Zand rule. But the home of the Kajars was in the Caspian provinces,
beyond the Albiirz mountains ; and consequently it seems to have been
necessary for the new dynasty to find a capital in the northern part of the
empire, under the wing, as it were, of the native stronghold of the Kajars.
Under such circumstances, the site of Tihran was manifestly convenient for
a capital ; and accordingly it has been adopted as such by all the sovereigns
of the Kajar dynasty.
The first conquest effected by Agha Muhammad Khan was that of Georgia.
For centuries a yearly tribute of male and female slaves had been sent by
the Czar of Georgia to the court of Persia ; but after the death of Nadir