Naderian Wars
1726 CE to 1747 CE
The Naderian Wars are a series of conflicts fought in the early to mid-eighteenth century throughout Central Eurasia primarily by the Iranian conqueror Nader Shah.
The Naderian wars originate from the overthrow of the Persian Safavid dynasty by the Hotaki Afghans.
In the ensuing collapse and fragmentation of the empire after the capture of the Persian capital of Isfahan by the Afghans, a claimant to the Safavid throne, Tahmasp II, had accepted into his service one Nader (who was no more than a petty warlord in Khorasan)
After having subdued north-west Iran as well as neutralising the Abdali Afghans to the east as well as turning Tahmasp II into a vassal, Nader had marched against the Hotaki Afghans in occupation of the rest of the country.
In a series of incredible victories the Afghans were decimated and Tahmasp II had returned to the throne as a restored Safavid monarch.
In the aftermath of the Safavid restoration, Nader campaigns in the western and northern reaches of the empire to regain territory lost to the Ottomans and Russians.
After a bitter war lasting five years, Nader manages to restore the western frontier of Persia as well as reimpose Persian suzerainty over most of the Caucasus.
The legitimacy which his astonishing military achievements have brought him allow a bloodless coup against the Safavid monarchy in which he has the unanimous support of the Persian ruling elite.
Nader Shah's first campaign as the monarch of the newly established Afsharid dynasty is the subjugation of Afghanistan in its entirety.
The result of the annexation of Afghanistan by Nader's empire is that he now has a direct path to the invasion of Mughal India.
In one of his most extraordinary campaigns he crosses the Khyber pass with only ten thousand men and subsequently descends down into the Mughal heartland, where he engages the Mughal army and, despite being outnumbered six to one, crushes his foes in little over three hours.
After making the Mughal emperor his vassal, he marches to Delhi, looting the city and massacring i population after they revolt against his occupation.
Nader's return to the empire signals new wars in the central Asian regions.
Nader expands Persian hegemony in central Asia to such an extent that their reach surpasses even the old Persian empires of the Sassanids.
At this juncture, however, Nader is beset by ever worsening mental health as he slowly deteriorates into insanity and paranoia.
His subsequent campaigns against the Lezgis in the northernmost reaches of the Caucasus prove to be less successful and his siege of Baghdad is lifted prematurely due to an uncharacteristic lethargy in Nader's generalship.
As Nader continuea ruinous policies against the inhabitants of the empire and brutal suppressions of dissent, he alienatea many of his subordinates and close associates. He has his heir's eyes gouged out in a fit of delusional paranoia and declares many of his loyal subjects as traitors and rebels, forcing them to erupt in rebellion against him.
Nader's last years are characterized by wandering his own empire in a series of barbaric campaigns in which rebellions are put down in the most brutal and cruel manner.
One of his very last major battles is a battle against the Ottomans near Kars, where he annihilates the Ottoman army sent against him, prompting Istanbul to seek terms of peace.
He is finally assassinated by a faction of his officers in his own tent.
The death of Nader spells the beginning of an extremely troubled and bloody chapter in Iranian history, in which continuous civil war engulfs the nation for over half a century before the establishment of the Qajar dynasty under Agha-Mohammad Khan Qajar.
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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.
Nadr deposes the youthful 'Abbas III (as Tahmasp II's son is styled) in 1736 and ascends the Persian throne himself, taking the title of Nader Shah.
The Treaty of Constantinople in 1736 restores Persia's western boundaries to those before the rule of Ottoman sultan Süleyman I "the Magnificent" (1496-1566), thus freeing Nader Shah (the first and only Afshar shah) to resume his fight against the Afghans.
The Yarubid family eventually calls in an army under Persia’s new ruler Nader Shah, whose invasion of the country in 1737 reestablishes Iranian influence on the Omani coast.
Qandahar falls to the newly-elected Nader Shah's eighty thousand-man army in 1738 after a year's siege.
Nader Shah has begun to launch raids across the Hindu Kush mountains into India, which, at this time, is under the rule of the Mughal Empire, which has been weakened by ruinous wars of succession in the three decades following the death of Aurangzeb.
The Muslim nobles have asserted their independence, while the Hindu Marathas have captured vast swathes of territory in Central and Northern India.
Its ruler, Muhammad Shah, has proved unable to stop the disintegration of the empire.
The imperial court administration is corrupt and weak whereas the country is extremely rich and Delhi’s prosperity and prestige is still at a high.
Nader Shah, attracted by the country's wealth, seeks plunder like so many other foreign invaders before him.
Nader asks that the Afghans who had rebelled against him and taken refuge in India should be handed over to him, but the Mughal emperor refuses to do so.
Nadir seizes upon this refusal as a pretext for war.
He defeats his Afghan enemies fleeing into the Hindu Kush and also seizes such major cities as Ghazni, ...
...Kabul and ...
...Peshawar, thereby placing a severe check on the rise of Pashtun power before ...
Nader leads his army to victory over the Mughals on February 13, 1739, at the Battle of Karna.
Mohammad Shah surrenders and ...
...both rulers enter Delhi together on March 20, 1730.
The keys to the capital of Delhi are surrendered to Nader, who occupies Shah Jehan’s imperial suite in the Red Fort.
Coins are struck, and prayers said in Nader’s name in the Jama Masjid and other Delhi mosques.
The next day, the Shah holds a great durbar in the capital.
The Persian occupation leads to price rises in the city.
The city administrator attempts to fix prices at a lower level and Persian troops are sent to the market at Paharganj, Delhi to enforce them.
However, the local merchants refuse to accept the lower prices and this results in violence, during which some Persians are assaulted and killed.
When a rumor spreads that Nader had been assassinated by a female guard at the Red Fort, some Indians attack and killed Persian troops during the riots that break out on the night of 21 March.
Nader, furious at the killings, retaliates by ordering his soldiers to carry out the notorious qatle-aam (sack) of Delhi.
The Shah on the morning of March 22 rides out in full armor and takes a seat at the Sunehri Masjid of Roshan-ud-dowla near the Kotwali Chabutra in the middle of Chandni Chowk.
He then, in a grand flourish, unsheathes his great battle sword, which is the signal to start the onslaught and carnage.
Almost immediately, the fully armed Persian army of occupation turns their swords and guns on to the unarmed and defenseless civilians in the city.
The Persian soldiers are given full license to do as they please and promised a share of the booty as the city is plundered.
During the course of six hours in a singe day, between twenty thousand to thirty thousand Indian men, women and children are slaughtered by the Persian troops in the city.
All across the city, gunshots are heard, explosions are set off, shops are looted and houses are set afire.
Clouds and plumes of fire and smoke are soon seen in every part of the city.
Persian troops stand outside the burning buildings and slaughter the Indians as they attempt to escape the smoke and flames.
Men ware chased down alleyways and killed.
Women are assaulted, raped and abducted, some have their breasts hacked off while others choose to commit suicide.
Babies are torn from their mothers' arms, swung by their ankles and their heads smashed against walls.
Areas of Delhi such as Chandni Chowk and Dariba Kalan, Fatehpuri, Faiz Bazar, Hauz Kazi, Johri Bazar and the Lahori, Ajmeri and Kabuli gates, all of which are densely populated by both Hindus and Muslims, are soon covered with corpses.
Muslims, like Hindus and Sikhs, resort to killing their women, children and themselves rather than submit to the Persians.
These events are recorded in contemporary chronicles such as the Tarikh-e-Hindi of Rustam Ali, the Bayan-e-Waqai of Abdul Karim and the Tazkira of Anand Ram Mukhlis.
Muhammad Shah is forced to beg for mercy.
Finally, after many hours of desperate pleading by the Mughals for mercy, Nadir Shah relents and signals a halt to the bloodshed by sheathing his battle sword once again.
The city is sacked for several days.
An enormous fine of twenty million rupees is levied on the people of Delhi.
Muhammad Shah hands over the keys to the royal treasury, and loses the Peacock Throne, to Nader Shah, which will hereafter serve as a symbol of Persian imperial might.
Among a treasure trove of other fabulous jewels, Nader also gains the Koh-i-Noor and Darya-ye Noor diamonds; they are now part of the British and Iranian Crown Jewels, respectively.