2 Shahi - Ismail III Safavi

Ismail III was a puppet shah installed by the powerful Zand chief Karim Khan in 1750, who kept the fiction of Safavid legitimacy alive while exercising all real authority himself. Coinage issued in Ismail III's name — including this piece — was a political instrument, maintaining the appearance of dynastic continuity for a dynasty that had functionally ceased to govern. Karim Khan would not formally assume his own titles until 1760, leaving a decade of issues nominally Safavid.

Ismail III was deposed and blinded in 1773, ending even the pretense.