Nader Shah Afshar (22 October 1688, Dargaz – 19 June 1747, Fathabad) was the Turkmen shah who was the founder and first ruler of the Afsharid Empire. Considered one of the most powerful rulers in the histories of Azerbaijan and Iran, he reigned as Afsharid Emperor and Shah of Iran from 1736 until his assassination in 1747. He waged war in many campaigns in West Asia, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia. Owing to his military genius, some historians have described him as the Napoleon of Iran or the Second Alexander.
He founded the great Afsharid Empire, which encompassed Iran, Azerbaijan, northern India, and a part of Central Asia. He won victories against the Afghans, the Ottomans, and the Mughal Empire. Nader Shah was the last great conqueror of Asia. He is praised for having restored the Afsharids to a respected place between the Ottomans and the Mughal Empire.
The sources note that Nader Shah possessed an organizing, brave, intelligent, and highly energetic nature. Although he knew Persian very well, he preferred to use Turkic (Chagatai). He even has an edict (yarlıq) written in Chagatai Turkic. In the meeting between the Mughal ruler Muhammad Shah and Nader Afshar after the Battle of Karnal in India, the two rulers spoke Turkic.
Nader Shah, unlike the Safavids, wished to count Shia under the name of Jafarism as a fifth Islamic school alongside the four Sunni schools, and this aim formed the basis of his domestic and foreign policy.
Early Years
Nader belonged to the "Kırklu/Kıruklu" clan of the Afshars living in the Abiverd border region of Khorasan. He was born when, during his clan's winter migration, they reached the village of Dastgird/Dargaz. His father İmam Kulu Beğ gave his son the name Nader Kulu. Concerning İmam Kulu Beğ, some sources say he was a maker of leather garments or a furrier, and others that he was a shepherd. Losing his father at a young age, Nader took part while still young in struggles with the other tribes of the region.
The Repulse of Threats in the East
In 1704, during his struggle with the Uzbeks who plundered Khorasan, he was taken captive together with his mother. His mother died in captivity; Nader, however, escaped in 1708 and returned to Khorasan.
Entering the service of Köse Ahmetlü Baba Ali Beğ, the ruler of Abiverd from among the Afshar Turks, he later married his daughter. (Abiverd lies in ruins to the northwest of the Kaakhka settlement in present-day Turkmenistan.)
Remaining for long years in the service of Köse Ahmetlü Ali Beğ, Nader succeeded him upon Ali Beğ's death in 1723. During the Ghilzai invasion of Iran and their capture of Isfahan, Malik Mahmud of Sistan, taking advantage of the turmoil the Safavids were in, offered to join forces with Nader, who was at that time on the Abiverd frontier, after he had seized Mashhad and its surroundings. Accepting this offer, Nader went to Mashhad and entered Malik Mahmud's service. But later, when he tried to kill Malik Mahmud during a jereed (javelin) game, he did not succeed and fled to Abiverd. Afterward, having eliminated Malik Mahmud, Nader, with the forces under his command, then deceived the bey of the fortress of Kalat and seized it, along with Dargaz and its surroundings on the Abiverd frontier. Having Kalat fortress fortified, Nader used it as a base and began his struggle with Malik Mahmud of Sistan, the Uzbeks, the Turkmens, and the Tatars. Nader first gathered under his command the Afshar groups living in the Khorasan region, the Çemişkezek Kurds, and other tribal forces, and then began his struggle with Malik Mahmud.
When Nader heard that Malik Mahmud had marched on the fortress of Zeydan and laid siege to it, he moved to the region to halt Malik Mahmud's advance and to aid the besieged fortress of Zeydan, and on the way defeated Malik Mahmud's forces, which were bringing artillery from Mashhad. When the fortress was about to fall, Nader arrived and routed Malik Mahmud's forces. Nader then pursued Malik Mahmud, who fled toward Mashhad, as far as the outskirts of Mashhad, but without advancing on Mashhad he marched on Abiverd, which had previously been in Afshar hands and had passed to Malik Mahmud. Despite the season being winter and the heavy snowfall, he marched on Abiverd and seized the city. Then, besieging the fortress of Keyan, Nader had mines dug around the fortress and, after a three-month siege, seized this fortress and had the notables of the city killed. Marching on Kara Han, the ruler of the fortress of Zağçend who had declared his independence, he seized it. Then, pursuing the Turkmens who fled toward Nesa (Nisa, Turkmenistan), Nader entered Nesa.
The First Ottoman Campaign
With the killing of Ashraf Khan, who had left Shiraz, in a raid by soldiers loyal to Sultan Hussein the ruler of Kandahar, the seven-year Ghilzai domination in Iran came to an end, and the Safavid sultanate was restored. Having eliminated the Abdali and Ghilzai danger coming to Iran from the east and largely put an end to the turmoil in the country, Nader turned to the west of the country. When the negotiations conducted with the Ottomans yielded no result, he marched on Nihavend and seized the city in July 1730. The forces sent against Nader under the command of Timurtaş Paşa, the governor of Van, lost the battle fought at the position of Malayir and were forced to withdraw toward Hamadan. When the garrison commander of Hamadan, Abdurrahman Paşa, realizing he could not defend the city, withdrew to Baghdad, Nader entered Hamadan without encountering any resistance. When it was heard that Nihavend and Hamadan had fallen, the Ottoman forces abandoned Kirmanshah, and Nader entered this city too without meeting resistance. Defeating the forces of the Ottoman frontier pashas who came against him near Maragha, he seized Savuçbulaç, Maragha, Mukri, and Dihharkan.
According to the agreement reached after the peace negotiations conducted in Istanbul with the Safavid envoy Rıza Kulu Han, Ganja, Tiflis, and Yerevan remained with the Ottomans, while Hamadan, Kirmanshah, and Tabriz were left to the Safavids. As the Iranian envoy Rıza Kulu Han reported the outcome of this agreement to Tahmasp II, the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Paşa secretly ordered the garrison commander of Tabriz, Çavuşbaşı Vizier Kara Mustafa Paşa, in accordance with the agreement, to evacuate Tabriz and hand it over to Nader. Although he learned of the peace terms, Nader continued his advance and, moving from Maragha, marched on Tabriz. Meanwhile, he defeated the Ottoman forces under the command of the Tabriz garrison commander Kara Mustafa Paşa, who in accordance with the order he had received from the government was evacuating Tabriz and withdrawing toward Van, at the position of Süheylan/Sahlan between Tabriz and Sufiyan. Meanwhile Nader defeated on 12 August 1730 the forces of Rüstem Paşa, the governor of Heştarud who had come to Mustafa Paşa's aid, and took him prisoner as well. Because the Ottoman forces had evacuated Tabriz, he seized the city with ease.
Sources
- Turkish Wikipedia: tr.wikipedia.org
- English Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org