| Ruler | Reign (CE) | Yrs | Father | Mother | Persian Name | فارسی |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Karim Khan and the Founding1 | ||||||
| Karim Khan Zand | 1751–1779 | 28 | Inaq Khan Zandchief of the Zand tribe2 | Begum Agha Zanganeh | Karīm Khān Zand | کریم خان زند |
| The Succession Crisis of 1779–17813 | ||||||
| Mohammad Ali Khan | 1779 | <1 | Karim Khan Zand | unnameda convert to Islam | Mohammad Ali Khān Zand | محمدعلی خان زند |
| Abol-Fath Khan | 1779 | <1 | Karim Khan Zandbrother of Mohammad Ali Khan4 | unnamedsister of Ismail Sultan Kord-e Quchani | Abū al-Fatḥ Khān Zand | ابوالفتح خان زند |
| Sadeq Khan Zand | 1779–1781 | 2 | Inaq Khan Zandbrother of Karim Khan | Begum Agha Zanganeh | Sādeq Khān Zand | صادق خان زند |
| Final Years5 | ||||||
| Ali Morad Khan | 1781–1785 | 4 | Qaytas Khannephew of Karim Khan and Sadeq Khan | unnameda sister of Zaki Khan Zand | Ali Morād Khān Zand | علیمراد خان زند |
| Jafar Khan | 1785–1789 | 4 | Sadeq Khan Zand | unknown | Ja’far Khān Zand | جعفر خان زند |
| Lotf Ali Khan | 1789–1794 | 5 | Jafar Khan | unknownlast Zand ruler6 | Lotf Ali Khān Zand | لطفعلی خان زند |
1 The Zand were a minor Lak-speaking Lor tribe from the Zagros highlands, ethnically and linguistically distinct from the Turkic Afshar and Qajar dynasties that bracket them. Karim Khan rose to power amid the chaos following Nader Shah’s death, eventually controlling most of Iran except Khorasan, still nominally held by the Afsharid Shahrukh.
2 Karim Khan pointedly never took the title “Shah,” ruling instead as Vakil ol-Ra’aya (“Regent of the People”) — for his first decade in power he governed in the name of a Safavid puppet, Ismail III, before dropping even that fiction after 1760. His nearly three-decade reign, centered on Shiraz, is generally remembered as a rare period of stability and mild governance between the wars of the Afsharid collapse and the Qajar conquest.
3 Karim Khan’s death in March 1779 triggered immediate chaos: his half-brother Zaki Khan Zand seized power as regent behind two of Karim Khan’s young sons, installed as joint puppet rulers, before Zaki Khan was himself killed within months and the throne changed hands repeatedly.
4 Mohammad Ali Khan and Abol-Fath Khan, Karim Khan’s surviving sons, were briefly installed as rival or joint claimants by competing factions in 1779; neither held real power, and both were swept aside within the year by their uncle Sadeq Khan.
5 Sadeq Khan was in turn overthrown and killed in 1781 by his own nephew, Ali Morad Khan, who moved the capital to Isfahan; renewed civil war after Ali Morad’s death brought Sadeq Khan’s son Jafar Khan to power in Shiraz.
6 Lotf Ali Khan, the dynasty’s last and by most accounts most capable ruler, fought a prolonged losing war against the rising Qajar chieftain Agha Mohammad Khan. Besieged at Kerman in 1794, he was betrayed, captured and executed, and the city’s population was brutally punished — ending Zand rule and clearing the way for unified Qajar control of Iran.