The Ghajarz Celebrating Norooz with a family portrait.

The Qajar rulers were members of the Quvanlu clan of the Qajars, originally themselves members of the Oghuz branch of the larger Turkmen peoples. Qajars first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qizilbash tribes that supported the Safavids . The Safavids "left Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to local Turkish 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 (present-day Gorgan, Iran) 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 Qajars, Shah Qoli Khan Qajar Qovanlu of the Qovanlus of Ganja, married into the Qovanlu Qajars of Astarabad. His son, Fath Ali Khan Qajar, born circa 1685-1693, was a renowned military commander during the rule of the Safavid shahs [[Husayn {Safavid)|Husayn]] and Tahmasp II. He was killed on the orders of Tahmasb Qoli Khan Afshar in 1726. Fath Ali Khan's son Mohammad Hassan Khan Qajar (1722-1758) was killed at the behest of Karim Khan Zand, and was the father of Agha Mohammad Khan and Hossein Qoli Khan (Jahansouz Shah) Qajar (father of "Baba Khan," the future Fath Ali Shah Qajar).

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