Qualla: Siege of Kerman

Siege of Kerman: Introduction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For four months in 1794, the people of Kerman watched from their walls as a Qajar army tightened its grip around the city. When the walls finally fell on October 24, what followed was not occupation but annihilation. Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, founder of the dynasty that would rule Iran for the next century, ordered a reprisal so extreme that it became a byword for cruelty across the Persian-speaking world: the men of Kerman were blinded or killed, the women and children sold into slavery, and the city systematically destroyed over ninety days. Twenty thousand pairs of eyes, by contemporary accounts, were presented to the conqueror in a pile. Kerman would take decades to recover.

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Siege of Kerman: The Last Zand King

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The siege was the final chapter in a dynastic war that had consumed Iran for fifteen years. Lotf Ali Khan, the last ruler of the Zand dynasty, had been fighting a losing struggle against the Qajars since the late 1770s. Charismatic and brave but increasingly desperate, Lotf Ali K...

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Siege of Kerman: Four Months Behind the Walls

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Through the summer of 1794, Kerman held. The defenders knew what surrender might bring -- Agha Mohammad Khan's reputation for ruthlessness preceded him -- and every evening, people gathered on the towers above the city gates to recite mocking poems directed at the Qajar commander...

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Siege of Kerman: Betrayal and a Brutal End

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Lotf Ali Khan's escape proved short-lived. The chief of Bam, calculating that loyalty to a doomed king was no longer worth the risk, handed him over to the Qajars. The last Zand ruler was delivered to the man who had waited years for this moment. Historical sources record that Lo...

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Siege of Kerman: Ninety Days of Destruction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Agha Mohammad Khan's vengeance against Kerman was both calculated and personal. He ordered all male inhabitants killed or blinded. The resulting pile of twenty thousand detached eyeballs was, according to multiple contemporary accounts, presented before the Qajar leader as proof ...

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