It was governed by members of the Ziyadoghlu clan of the Turkic Qajar tribe, who had previously held the governorship of Karabakh under the Safavid dynasty of Iran.

The Zangezur district was given to the beglerbegi (governor-general) of Tabriz; the autonomy of the Armenian Melikdoms was restored, and Borchalu, Qazzaq and Shamshadil were given to the Georgian king Teimuraz II (r. 1732–1762).

[6] A khanate was a type of administrative unit governed by a hereditary or appointed ruler subject to Iranian rule.

In 1740, his son Shahverdi Khan Ziyadoghlu succeeded him, but in 1743 he had to seek sanctuary with Teimuraz II in Kartli due to supporting a claimant to the Iranian throne, Sam Mirza.

They took control of Ganja's citadel, blinded Mohammad Khan, and chose Prince Kai-Khosrow Andronikashvili and Hazrat Qoli Beg as their own regents to manage each zone.

[14] Ibrahim Khalil Khan was able to organize a widespread rebellion in Ganja that resulted in the ascent to power of a Ziyadoghlu family member with the help of a Daghestani tribe.

Heraclius II, however, was compelled to make an arrangement with Fath-Ali Khan of Quba in 1789 and return the Shamshadil province to Ganja after Burnashev and his soldiers received orders to participate in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792.

Tiflis was then looted by Agha Mohammad Khan's soldiers for two weeks, resulting in the death of many, as well as the enslavement of women and children.

[18] With most of the borders of the Safavid realm reinstated, Agha Mohammad Khan crowned himself shah of Iran and advanced to Khorasan in order to conquer the final province.

[19] The Russian empress Catherine II the Great (r. 1762–1796) viewed the attack on Tiflis as an offense to Russia,[18] and used it as a reason to invade the South Caucasus.

The letter explained her reason behind the invasion as a way to protect Georgia and the rest of the South Caucasus from the "usurper" Agha Mohammad Khan.

[18] During the first Russo-Persian War (1804-1813), Ganja was considered by Russians, who had earlier supported the Georgian claim to the sovereignty over the khanate, as a town of foremost importance.

According to a major study of the military events in the Caucasus by John F. Baddeley: "Thus Gandja, on the pretence that from the time of Tamara it had really belonged to Georgia, though long lost to that country owing to the weakness of her rulers, was invaded, the capital city of the same name stormed after a month's siege (2 January 1804), Djavat Khan killed, and the khanate annexed.

"Five hundred Tartars [Azerbaijanis] shut themselves up in a mosque, meaning, perhaps, to surrender, but an Armenian told the soldiers that there were some Daghestanis amongst them, and the name was a death-signal for all, so great is the exasperation of your Majesty's troops against those people for their raids into Georgia and the robber war they carry on", but all the women in the town were spared -- a rare occurrence in Caucasian warfare, and due to Tsitsianoff's strict injunctions.

[22] The administrative and literary language in Ganja until the end of the 19th century was Persian, with Arabic being used only for religious studies, despite the fact that most of the Muslims in the region spoke a Turkic dialect.

[26] The Armenian community contributed significantly to the khan's income through a range of business endeavors as well as by paying the additional tax levied on non-Muslims.

[27] When the Russian army invaded Ganja in 1804, the city had 10,425 residents,[28] which the modern historian Muriel Atkin considers to be "sparse".

Similar to the last time, Ganja reacted to this reform by starting to mint a lighter version weighing 3.07 g (66.67%).