Shahrukh is a contemporary of Mir Sayyed Mohammad Marashi, the son of a daughter of the late Safavid Shah Suleiman I and a clergyman, who is in charge of the affairs of the Holy Shrine in Mashhad.

Encouraged by the nobles, Mir Sayyed Mohammad comes to believe he is the true heir to the throne.

Thus he captures and blinds Shahrukh, capitalizing on the popular dissatisfaction with Shahrukh's rule, partly owing to the conduct of his Georgian favorite Rasul Beg, who has scandalized Mashad by making free with the harem of his master.

Mohammad Hasan Khan, leader of the Qajar tribe, had been driven from Astarabad in the early 1740s, but after the death of Nader Shah in 1747, he appears to have joined Shahrukh Afshar and been appointed beglerbeg of Astarabad and leader of all the nomadic groups in the province by Suleiman II; after the latter is deposed, Mohammad Hasan becomes virtually independent and extends his power to Mazandaran and Gilan.

Azad, born in Andar town in the east of Ghazni, Afghanistan, into the Sulaimankhel clan of the Ghilji confederacy, had joined Nader Shah's army around 1738 and had taken part in his campaigns in India and Iran.

At the time of Nader's murder, he was second-in-command to Amir Aslan Khan Qerglu Afshar, the governor of Azerbaijan.

Azad had played a prominent role in the power struggle that followed the death of Nader, quickly defecting from Aslan Khan to Nader's nephew and would-be successor, Ebrahim Mirza, and earning for himself the title of khan.

When Ebrahim was himself defeated by Nader's grandson, Shahrukh Shah, Azad Khan had attached himself and his Afghan cavalry to Mīr Sayyed Moḥammad, the superintendent of the shrine at Mashhad, following whose orders he had withdrawn to the western marches of Iran.

Azad has continued to be involved in the unrest in Iran and, through a series of alliance with local Kurd and Turkish chieftains and a policy of compromise with the Georgian ruler Erekle II, Azad rises to control all the territory between Ardabil and Urmia by 1752.