The Safavids “left Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to local Turkic khans”, and, “in 1554 Ganja was governed by Shahverdi Soltan Ziyadoglu Qajar, whose family came to govern Karabakh in southern Arran”.
Qajars filled a number of diplomatic missions and governorships in the 16–17th centuries for the Safavids. The Qajars were resettled by Shah Abbas I throughout Iran. The great number of them also settled in Astarabad near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea, and it would be this branch of Qajars that would rise to power.
