Persia's last two Safavi rulers, Shah Suleiman (1669-94) and Shah Sultan Husayn (1694-1722), are voluptuaries.

The eastern frontiers began to be breached once again, and in 1722 a small body of Afghan tribesmen wins a series of easy victories before entering and taking the capital itself, ending Safavi rule.

Afghan supremacy is brief.

Tahmasp Quli, a chief of the Afshar tribe, soon expels the Afghans in the name of a surviving member of the Safavi family.

He then assumes power in 1736 in his own name as Nader Shah.

He goes on to drive the Ottomans from Georgia and Armenia and the Russians from the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea and restores Iranian sover eignty over Afghanistan.

He also takes his army on several campaigns into India, sacking Delhi in 1739 and bringing back fabulous treasures.

Nader Shah achieves political unity but his military campaigns and extortionate taxation prove a terrible drain on a country already ravaged and depopulated by war and disorder, and in 1747 he is murdered by chiefs of his own Afshar tribe.

A period of anarchy marked by a struggle for supremacy among Afshar, Qajar, Afghan, and Zand tribal chieftains folows Nader Shah's death.