Overview
Afsharid and Zand Iran (1736–1796) was the turbulent bridge between the Safavids and the Qajars. Nader Shah (r. 1736–47) expelled the Afghan occupiers, crowned himself, and briefly made Iran the terror of its neighbors — Delhi was sacked in 1739. His assassination in 1747 collapsed the Afsharid state into fragments, his successors holding only Khorasan.
Key developments
From the chaos rose Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–79), who ruled most of Iran from Shiraz. He famously declined the title of shah, styling himself Vakil — a deputy or regent of the people. His reign is remembered as a rare interlude of peace, low taxes, and rebuilding, embodied in the Vakil bazaar, mosque, and citadel of Shiraz.
End and transition
After Karim Khan’s death in 1779, the Zands fell into succession wars. Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, a rival tribal leader, defeated the last Zand, Lotf Ali Khan — taken at Kerman in 1794 with notorious cruelty — and by 1796 was crowned shah, founding the Qajar dynasty. These sixty years decided nothing ideologically, but they relocated power and left Shiraz architecture that ranks among its finest since the Safavids.