History of the Middle East (Part 4.5: Iranian dynasties)
Dabuyid Dynasty (642-760)
Despite the Rashidun conquest, they remained Zoroastrians, opposing the Umayyads after the Rashidun fell and only being conquered by the Abbasids, who were also of Persian origin.
Saffarid dynasty (861-1003)
Independence
Yaqub ibn Layth al-Saffar (840-879) rebelled against the Abbasids and gained independence.
However, the empire was quickly divided between the Buyid dynasty (934-1062) in the East and the Samanid Empire (892-999) in the West.
Conquest
The Buyid were eventually conquered by Tughril (990-1063), the founder of the Seljuk empire (1037-1194).
The Samanid were eventually overthrown by their own slave soldiers, who had formed the Ghaznavid empire (977-1186).
The Ghaznavid were a great center of learning, but, just like the Buyids, were eventually conquered by the Seljuks.
Khwarezmian dynasty (1077-1231)
Seljuk infighting allowed them to gain independence in 1157. But they were soon conquered by the Mongols.
Timurid empire (1370-1507)
The Mongol Ilkhanate empire (1256-1335) was ravaged by the Black Death and then shattered by many small tribes. 
Tamerlane (1336-1405)
During the decline of the Chagatai, Timur rose to power in the region of Transoxiana in 1370, taking the Arabic title of Emir, as he lacked the prestige to become a Khan.
Timur was born in the Chagatai Khanate (Uzbekistan). He was very poor and forced to steal, once resulting in injuries in his leg and hand, earning him the nickname of Tamerlane.
Having consolidated his position, he spent the 1380’s conquering Iranian plateau, with many cities surrendering without a fight due to his cruel reputation, and in the 1390’s he conquered Mesopotamia and Baghdad, the capital of Islam.
He initially had to deal with invasions from the Golden Horde and eventually put a puppet ruler there, but he was betrayed and thus decided to simply ravage it to a point of no recovery.
Hearing rumors of weakness in the wealthy Delhi Sultanate, he sacked India in 1398, beginning the decline of Delhi.
In 1402, he faced the Ottoman empire at the Battle of Ankara and captured Sultan Bayezid. After this he planned to invade Ming China, but died of old age on the way.
Timur was the last great nomadic conqueror before gunpowder was invented, and killed 7-12 million people, around 5% of the world’s population.
Decline (1447-1507)
After the death of Timur, his empire fell into civil war, and his son Shah Rukh (r. 1405-1447) emerged victorious, although weakened.
After his death, the empire fell to civil war and invasions, mostly Persian and Uzbek, but Babar (r. 1526-1530), his grandson would found the Mughal empire (1526-1857) in India.
Because Timur moved the scholars of places he sacked to Samarkand, it became the center of Persian culture during the Timurid renaissance.
Safavid empire (1501-1736)
Founded by Ismail I, who claimed descent from Muhammad, the Shia Safavids beat what was left of the Timurid Empire and created a Golden Age of Iran.
They brought back Persian culture, being considered the first Persian dynasty to rule Iran since the Sassanids.
They were overthrown by Nader Shah, who founded the short lived Afsharid dynasty (1736-1796), which remained an autonomous region under the Zand dynasty (1751-1794), before they were overthrown by the Turkic Qajar dynasty.
Nader Shah (1688-1747)
Born in the Afshar tribe, he led a large band of robbers early in life, but when the Safavid throne was usurped by the Afghans, he was put in charge of the army and helped him retake the throne in 1726.
He then attacked the Ottomans to (re)take Azerbaijan and Iraq, but when the emperor's incompetence led to failure, Nader deposed him and declared himself reagent a puppet ruler.
He then drove the Ottomans out of Iran and threatened Russia so that they would abandon their claims to the region. In 1736 he deposed the puppet ruler and took the throne.
He built a navy and used it to take Bahrain and Oman. In 1739 he invaded India and sacked Delhi, taking the golden Peacock throne with him. By 1740 he had conquered Central Asia and created a massive empire.
Although a brilliant strategist, he was horrible at statesmanship and was very cruel, thus bankrupting his country and being assassinated by his own troops.
Qajar dynasty (1789-1925)
The Qajar lost a series of wars against the Russian and British empires, resulting in borders similar to modern day Iran and a search for modernization.
An unhappy population led to the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), which created a parliament.
During WW1, Persia was occupied by the Entente, further increasing dissatisfaction and leading to a coup by Reza Shah in 1921, establishing the Pahlavi dynasty.
Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979)
By 1951, the Shah was merely a figurehead to Britain and the US, but when the PM nationalized the oil industry, he was overthrown in a coup by the CIA operation Ajax (1953) and the Shah was granted supreme power.
In 1979, the Iranian Revolution overthrew the Shah and put Ali Khamenei in power. He is still there.
The coup of 1921 was helped by the British, who wished to prevent a communist takeover.