Foundation of the dynasty Nader Shah was born (as Nadr Qoli) into a humble semi-nomadic family from the
Afshar tribe of Khorasan, where he became a local warlord. His path to power began when the Ghilzai
Mahmud Hotak overthrew the weakened and disintegrated
Safavid shah
Soltan Hoseyn in 1722. At the same time,
Ottoman and
Russian forces seized Iranian land. Russia took swaths of Iran's
Caucasian territories in the
North Caucasus and
Transcaucasia, as well as mainland northern Iran, by the
Russo-Persian War, while the neighbouring Ottomans invaded from the west. By the
1724 Treaty of Constantinople, they agreed to divide the conquered areas between themselves. On the other side of the theatre, Nader joined forces with Soltan Hoseyn's son
Tahmasp II and led the resistance against the Ghilzai
Afghans, driving their leader
Ashraf Khan out of the capital in 1729 and establishing Tahmasp on the throne. Nader fought to regain the lands lost to the Ottomans and Russians and to restore Iranian hegemony in Iran. While he was away in the east fighting the Ghilzais, Tahmasp
waged a disastrous campaign in the Caucasus which allowed the Ottomans to retake most of their lost territory in the west. Nader, displeased, had Tahmasp deposed in favour of his infant son
Abbas III in 1732. Four years later, after he had recaptured most of the lost Iranian lands, Nader felt confident enough to have himself proclaimed shah in his own right at a ceremony on the
Mughan plain. Nader subsequently made the Russians cede the taken territories taken in 1722–23 through the
Treaty of Resht of 1732 and the
Treaty of Ganja of 1735. Back in control of the integral northern territories, and with a new Russo-Iranian alliance against the common Ottoman enemy, he continued the
Ottoman–Persian War. The Ottoman armies were expelled from western Iran and the rest of the
Caucasus, and the resultant
1736 Treaty of Constantinople forced the Ottomans to confirm Iranian suzerainty over the Caucasus and recognised Nader as the new
Shah.
Conquests of Nader Shah and the succession problem Fall of the Hotak Empire Tahmasp and the Qajar leader Fath Ali Khan (the ancestor of
Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar) contacted Nader and asked him to join their cause and drive the
Ghilzai Afghans out of Khorasan. He agreed and thus became a figure of national importance. When Nader discovered that Fath Ali Khan was corresponding with Malek Mahmud and revealed this to the shah, Tahmasp executed him and made Nader the chief of his army instead. Nader subsequently took on the title Tahmasp Qoli (Servant of Tahmasp). In late 1726, Nader recaptured
Mashhad. Nader chose not to march directly on Isfahan. First, in May 1729, he defeated the
Abdali Afghans near
Herat. Many of the Abdali Afghans subsequently joined his army. The new shah of the Ghilzai Afghans,
Ashraf, decided to move against Nader but in September 1729, Nader defeated him at the
Battle of Damghan and again decisively in November at Murchakhort, banishing the Afghans from Iranian soil forever. Ashraf fled and Nader finally entered Isfahan, handing it over to Tahmasp in December and plundering the city to pay his army. Tahmasp made Nader governor over many of the eastern provinces, including his native Khorasan, and married him to his sister. Nader pursued and defeated Ashraf, who was murdered by his own followers. In 1738, Nader Shah
besieged and destroyed the last Hotak seat of power, at
Kandahar. He built a new city nearby, which he named "
Naderabad".
First Ottoman campaign and the regain of the Caucasus In the spring of 1735, Nader
attacked Iran's archrival, the Ottomans, and regained most of the territory lost during the recent chaos. At the same time, the Abdali Afghans rebelled and besieged Mashhad, forcing Nader to suspend his campaign and save his brother, Ebrahim. It took Nader fourteen months to crush this uprising. Relations between Nader and the Shah had declined as the latter grew alarmed by his general's military successes. While Nader was absent in the east, Tahmasp tried to assert himself by launching
a campaign to recapture
Yerevan. He ended up losing all of Nader's recent gains to the Ottomans, and
signed a treaty ceding
Georgia and
Armenia in exchange for
Tabriz. Nader, furious, saw that the moment had come to depose Tahmasp. He denounced the treaty, seeking popular support for a war against the Ottomans. In Isfahan, Nader got Tahmasp drunk then showed him to the courtiers asking if a man in such a state was fit to rule. In 1732 he forced Tahmasp to abdicate in favour of the Shah's infant son, Abbas III, to whom Nader became regent. Nader decided, as he continued the
1730–35 war, that he could win back the territory in Armenia and Georgia by seizing Ottoman
Baghdad and then offering it in exchange for the lost provinces, but his plan went badly amiss when his army was routed by the Ottoman general
Topal Osman Pasha near the city in 1733. Nader decided he needed to regain the initiative as soon as possible to save his position because revolts were already breaking out in Iran. He faced Topal again with a larger force and defeated and killed him. He then besieged Baghdad, as well as
Ganja in the northern provinces, earning a Russian alliance against the Ottomans. Nader scored a decisive victory over a superior Ottoman force
at Yeghevard (modern-day Armenia) and by the summer of 1735, Armenia and Georgia were under his rule. In March 1735, he signed
a treaty with the Russians in Ganja by which the latter agreed to withdraw all of their troops from Iranian territory, those which had not been ceded back by the 1732
Treaty of Resht yet, mainly regarding
Derbent,
Baku,
Tarki, and the surrounding lands, resulting in the reestablishment of Iranian rule over all of the Caucasus and northern mainland Iran again.
Nader becomes shah Nader suggested to his closest intimates, after a hunting party on the
Mughan plain (presently split between Azerbaijan and Iran), that he should be proclaimed the new shah in place of the young Abbas III. The small group of close intimates, Nader's friends, included
Tahmasp Khan Jalayer and
Hasan-Ali Beg Bestami. Following Nader's suggestion, the group did not "demur", and Hasan-Ali remained silent. When Nader asked him why he remained silent, Hasan-Ali replied that the best course of action for Nader would be to assemble all the leading men of the state, in order to receive their agreement in "a signed and sealed document of consent". Nader approved of the proposal, and the writers of the chancellery, which included the court historian
Mirza Mehdi Khan Astarabadi, were instructed with sending out orders to the military, religious and nobility of the nation to summon at the plains. The summonses for the people to attend had gone out in November 1735, and they began arriving in January 1736. In the same month of January 1736, Nader held a
qoroltai (a grand meeting in the tradition of
Genghis Khan and
Timur) on the Mughan plain. The Mughan plain was specifically chosen for its size and "abundance of fodder". Everyone agreed to the proposal of Nader becoming the new shah, many—if not most—enthusiastically, the rest fearing Nader's anger if they showed support for the deposed Safavids. Nader was crowned Shah of Iran on March 8, 1736, a date his astrologers had chosen as being especially propitious, in attendance of an "exceptionally large assembly" composed of the military, religious and nobility of the nation, as well as the Ottoman ambassador Ali Pasha.
Invasion of the Mughal Empire has been called a "military masterpiece" by the Russian general & historian Kursinski , Nader crushed an enormous Mughal army six times greater than his own In 1738, Nader Shah conquered Kandahar, the last outpost of the
Hotak dynasty and established Naderabad, Kandahar. His thoughts now turned to the
Mughal Empire based in Delhi. This once powerful Muslim state to the east was falling apart as the nobles became increasingly disobedient and the Hindu
Maratha Empire made inroads on its territory from the south-west. Its ruler
Muhammad Shah was powerless to reverse this disintegration. Nader asked for the Afghan rebels to be handed over, but the Mughal emperor refused. Nader used the pretext of his Afghan enemies taking refuge in India to cross the border and invade the militarily weak but still extremely wealthy Mughal empire. In a campaign against the governor of Peshawar, he took a small contingent of his forces on a daunting flank march through nearly impassable mountain passes, and took the enemy forces positioned at the mouth of the
Khyber Pass completely by surprise, decisively beating them despite being outnumbered two-to-one. This led to the capture of
Ghazni,
Kabul,
Peshawar,
Sindh and
Lahore. As Nader moved into Mughal territories, he was accompanied by his loyal
Georgian subject and future king of
eastern Georgia,
Erekle II, who led a Georgian contingent as a military commander as part of Nader's force. Following the defeat of Mughal forces priorly, he then advanced deeper into India, crossing the
Indus River before the end of the year. The news of the Iranian army's swift and decisive successes against the northern vassal states of the Mughal empire caused much consternation in Delhi, prompting the Mughal ruler, Muhammad Shah, to summon an overwhelming force of some 300,000 men and march this massive host north towards the Iranian army. forces negotiate with a
Mughal Nawab. Nader Shah crushed the Mughal army in less than three hours at the large
Battle of Karnal on 13 February 1739. After this decisive victory, Nader captured Mohammad Shah and entered with him into Delhi. When a rumour broke out that Nader had been assassinated, some of the Indians attacked and killed Iranian troops. Nader, furious, reacted by ordering his soldiers to plunder and
sack the city. During the course of one day (March 22) 20,000 to 30,000 Indians were killed by the Iranian troops, forcing Mohammad Shah to beg Nader for mercy. In response, Nader Shah agreed to withdraw, but Mohammad Shah paid the consequence in handing over the keys of his royal treasury, and losing the
Peacock Throne to Nader Shah. The Peacock Throne thereafter served as a symbol of Iranian imperial might. It is estimated that Nader took with him treasures worth as much as seven hundred million rupees. Among a trove of other fabulous jewels, Nader gained the
Koh-i-Noor and
Daria-i-Noor diamonds (Koh-i-Noor means "Mountain of Light" in Persian, Daria-i-Noor means "Sea of Light"). Nader Shah's troops left Delhi at the beginning of May 1739, but before they left, Nader ceded back to Muhammad Shah all territories to the east of the Indus that he had overrun. Nader Shah's soldiers also took with them thousands of elephants, horses and camels, loaded with the booty they had collected. On his return march, the Sikhs came out from the hills and ambushed Nader Shah's troops, taking some of the loot and captives with them. However, the remaining plunder seized from India was so valuable that Nader stopped
taxation in Iran for a period of three years following his return. Nader attacked the empire to, perhaps, give his country some breathing space after previous turmoils. His successful campaign and replenishment of funds meant that he could continue his wars against Iran's archrival and neighbour, the
Ottoman Empire.
North Caucasus, Central Asia, Arabia, and the second Ottoman war , dated 1741/2 (left = obverse; right = reverse) The Indian campaign was the zenith of Nader's career. After his return from India, Nader fell out with his eldest son Reza Qoli Mirza, who had ruled Iran during his father's absence. Reza had behaved highhandedly and somewhat cruelly but he had kept the peace. Having heard a rumour that Nader was dead, he had prepared to seize the throne by having the Safavid royal captives, Tahmasp and his nine-year-old son Abbas III, executed. On hearing the news, Reza's wife, who was Tahmasp's sister, committed suicide. Nader was not pleased with the young man's behaviour and humiliated him by removing him from the post of viceroy, but he took him on his expedition to conquer territory in
Transoxiana. Nader became increasingly despotic as his health declined markedly. In 1740 he conquered Khanate of
Khiva. After the Iranians had forced the
Uzbek khanate of
Bukhara to submit, Nader wanted Reza to marry the khan's elder daughter because she was a descendant of his role model Genghis Khan, but Reza flatly refused and Nader married the girl himself. Nader also conquered
Khwarezm on this expedition into Central Asia. was the last major field battle Nader fought in his spectacular military career Nader now decided to punish
Daghestan for the death of his brother Ebrahim Qoli on a campaign a few years earlier. In 1741, while Nader was passing through the forest of
Mazandaran on his way to fight the Daghestanis, an assassin took a shot at him but Nader was only lightly wounded. He began to suspect his son was behind the attempt and confined him to
Tehran. Nader's increasing ill health made his temper ever worse. Perhaps it was his illness that made Nader lose the initiative in his war against the
Lezgin tribes of Daghestan. Frustratingly for him, they resorted to guerrilla warfare and the Iranians could make little headway against them. Though Nader managed to take most of Dagestan during his campaign, the effective guerrilla warfare as deployed by the
Lezgins, but also the
Avars,
Laks and
Dargins made the Iranian re-conquest of this particular North Caucasian region this time a short lived one; several years later, Nader
was forced to withdraw. During the same period, Nader accused his son of being behind the assassination attempt in Mazandaran. Reza angrily protested his innocence, but Nader had him blinded as punishment, although he immediately regretted it. Soon afterwards, Nader started executing the nobles who had witnessed his son's blinding. In his last years, Nader became increasingly paranoid, ordering the assassination of large numbers of suspected enemies. With the wealth he gained, Nader started to build an Iranian navy. With lumber from
Mazandaran and
Gilan, he built ships in
Bushehr and order to build new artillery in
Amol. He also purchased thirty ships in India.
Military The military forces of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran had their origins in the relatively obscure yet bloody inter-factional violence in Khorasan during the collapse of the Safavid state. The small band of warriors under local warlord
Nader Qoli of the Turkomen Afshar tribe in north-east Iran were no more than a few hundred men. Yet at the height of Nader's power as the king of kings, Shahanshah, he commanded an army of 375,000 fighting men which constituted the single most powerful military force of its time, led by one of the most talented and successful military leaders of history. After Nader Shah's assassination at the hands of a faction of his officers in 1747, his powerful army fractured as the Afsharid state collapsed and the country plunged into decades of civil war. Although there were numerous Afsharid pretenders to the throne, (amongst many others), who attempted to regain control of the entire country, Iran remained a fractured political entity in turmoil until the campaigns of
Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar toward the very end of the 18th century reunified the nation.
Civil war and downfall of the Afsharids After Nader Shah's death in 1747, his nephew Ali Qoli (who may have been involved in the assassination plot) seized the throne and proclaimed himself
Adel Shah ("The Just King"). He ordered the execution of all of Nader's sons and grandsons, with the exception of the 13-year-old
Shahrokh, the son of Reza Qoli. Meanwhile, Nader's former treasurer,
Ahmad Shah Abdali, had declared his independence by founding the
Durrani Empire. In the process, the eastern territories were lost and in the following decades became part of
Afghanistan, the successor-state to the Durrani Empire. The northern territories, Iran's most integral regions, had a different fate.
Erekle II and
Teimuraz II, who, in 1744, had been made the kings of
Kakheti and
Kartli respectively by Nader himself for their loyal service, capitalized on the eruption of instability and declared
de facto independence. Erekle II assumed control over Kartli after Teimuraz II's death, thus unifying the two as the
Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, becoming the first Georgian ruler in three centuries to preside over a politically unified eastern Georgia, and due to the frantic turn of events in mainland Iran he would be able to remain
de facto autonomous through the
Zand era. Under the successive
Qajar dynasty, Iran managed to
restore Iranian suzerainty over the Georgian regions, until they would be irrevocably lost in the
course of the 19th century, to the
Russian Empire. Many of the rest of the territories in the Caucasus, comprising modern-day Azerbaijan, Armenia, and
Dagestan, broke away into various
khanates. Until the advent of the
Zands and Qajars, its rulers had various forms of autonomy, but stayed vassals and subjects to the Iranian shah. During the early
Qajar era, these territories in
Transcaucasia and Dagestan would all be fully reincorporated into Iran, but eventually permanently lost as well (alongside Georgia), in the course of the 19th century to Imperial Russia through the two
Russo-Persian Wars. One of Shahrokh's sons,
Nader Mirza, revolted in 1797 upon Agha Mohammad Khan's death but the revolt was crushed and he was executed in April 1803. Shahrokh's descendants continue into the 21st century under the Afshar Naderi surname. ==Religious policy==