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. 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.
The immediate ancestor of the Qajar dynasty, Shah Qoli Khan of the Quvanlu of Ganja (also spelled Ghovanloo or Ghovanlou), married into the Quvanlu Qajars of Astarabad.
