The story of Nadir Shah
The Man who had robbed Kohinoor Diamond
According to contemporaries, Nadir Shah was a tall, black-eyed handsome man who was merciless to his enemies and had a big heart for those who accepted his submission.
It was about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the “most powerful army” in the world at that time prepared to attack the Ottoman Empire, under the peaks of Mount Qafe.
When historians call it the largest army of its time, they do not mean that they are only calling it the largest army in Asia or the Middle East, but they also compare it to the largest armies in Europe at that time. .
In a short span of time, this army, which was successful in many wars from Iraq and Syria in the Ottoman Empire in the west to Delhi in the east, was the result of the life-long strategy and hard work of its commander Nadir Shah.
A glimpse of the actions of Nadir Shah and his army till the year 1743 can be seen in these few lines of historian Michael Exordi.
“Nadir Shah liberated Iran from Afghan occupation, ousted the Ottoman Turks from Iranian territory, planned an evacuation of his territories from the Russians, invaded and defeated the Ottoman Empire’s territories, and made himself Emperor of Iran invaded the Afghans by entering their territories and recapturing those territories, then invaded India and conquered Delhi, entered Central Asia, and again turned west, conquering Turkmans and Uzbeks and fought a successful war against the Ottomans.”
Weakness of the Mughal Empire
Historian Michael Exordi writes, “The military prowess of Nadir Shah’s army can be gauged from the fact that later his two captains established two separate states, Afghanistan and Georgia.”
It is said that if Nadir Shah had not been there, Iran might not have been there and it would have been “divided into Afghans, Russians and Turks.” When Nadir Shah took over the power of the Iranian Sultanate, this division had happened to a great extent.
Nadir Shah’s invasion of Delhi also alerted the British East India Company to the weakness of the Mughal Empire, and Exordi believes that “if Nadir Shah had not been there, the British era would have begun late and differently, and may or may never never have been.” would also.”
Nadir Shah was not born in any royal or Nawabi family. Born in a border region far from the capital of the Iranian Empire, the few privileges that this warrior could have had because of his father were also likely lost due to his father’s early death.
Despite this, in nearly thirty years of starting his life by collecting and selling wood from the forest for a living, he himself had become the commander of the most powerful army in the world he had raised.
But in the story of this warrior, like most of the stories, after the highs came the Jawal (fall). Nadir Shah could not leave a strong state and his army for his sons.
Historians believe that if this were to happen, his powerful family would not only fortify Iran’s borders, but also bring about changes that were made possible by the requirements of the European states to compete with each other and to have a modern army.
Historians believe, “It can also be said that after the defeat at the hands of the Afghans, a resurgent Iran would fill the gap created by the relatively weak Mughal and Ottoman empires. wanted to end the division, he could have prevented the fall of the Islamic world against Europe.”
But this did not happen. Rather, the ending of Nadir Shah’s story makes it a ‘tragedy’, which is remembered today more for the atrocities and brutality of Nadir Shah than the successes of the war and the mental imbalance of the last days.
Ahmed Shah Abdali, considered the founder of the modern Afghan state: “The military prowess of Nadir Shah’s army can be gauged from the fact that later his two captains established two separate states, Afghanistan and Georgia. “
Born in a dangerous border area
Michael Exordi, in his books ‘Iran: Empire of the Mind’ and ‘The Sword of Persia’, has detailed the ups and downs of Nadir Shah’s life.
However, he has also clarified that the details of Nadir Shah’s date of birth and early life are not clear and further research is needed on him.
Nadir Shah was born in a dangerous area in the northern part of Khorasan, the eastern province of the Iranian Empire. There are different opinions about the date of his birth, but according to Exordi, this date was 6 August 1698 and his birthplace was a village called Dastagard on Allahu Akbar mountain in the area of Darra Ghaz.
His mother tongue was Turkish but he must have learned Persian soon. This area was north of Mashhad, the capital of Khorasan.
His father was a shepherd in the Afshar tribe of Turkman, who belonged to a low class but respected class. Perhaps he was also the head of the village.
Nadir Shah’s past
Nadir Shah always kept this past in front of him and even after becoming the emperor, he never tried to create any fantastic story about his childhood.
If you look at the work of his royal historian, one will read such things as “The sword has its own strength, it is not related to the iron from which it is extracted.”
Before moving on to the story of Nadir Shah, read about an interesting incident about the sword itself.
While Nadir Shah’s army was collecting money from Indians in Delhi, Nadir Shah married his son Nasrullah to the great-granddaughter of Emperor Aurangzeb and niece of Muhammad Shah. Both the families gave expensive gifts to the newlyweds and there was a lot of fireworks on the banks of Yamuna.
According to tradition, Mughal officials used to trace the seven generations of the groom. When asked about Nadir Shah’s son, he said, “Tell him that he is Nadir Shah’s son who is Talwar ibn Talwar ibn Talwar and has been so for seventy generations.”
At birth, he was named Nadir Kali, which means ‘slave of the proud’. Years later, when the son of the shepherd Sardar Imam Kali became the emperor, his name was changed to Nadir Shah.
In the early eighteenth century, nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists accounted for a third of the Iranian Empire’s population, which makes up about three million.
Culturally, he had adopted Persian culture, but his identity was Turkic-Mongol traditions associated with Amir Timur and Genghis Khan.
They considered themselves superior to those settled in the area under their cavalry ancestors.
Nadir Shah grew up in a dual culture. A Turkic-speaking citizen of the Iranian Empire, one aspect of whose personality was also the Persian culture that had been adopted from Istanbul to Samarkand and Delhi.
At the age of ten, he was known to be a good horseman and hunter, who was also adept at archery and javelin throwing. His father died in his childhood and the family plunged into poverty.
Michael Exordi writes that in a society where a woman would become very weak without a man, her mother did not give up, being a poor widow.
Historians say that perhaps seeing his mother working so hard instilled in him a feeling of sympathy for women, which he later proved several times during campaigns.
He never forgot these days of hardship, nor did he forget the companions of those days, especially his mother and brother Abraham.
He also spent days when he used to pick wood from the forest and sell it on camels and mules to the city and this was his source of income.
Exordi says that after becoming king, he rewarded one of his lumberjack companions, telling him to “don’t be arrogant, remember to pick this mule and the wood.”
If before his father’s death he had spent his childhood happily and proudly of other children, then after his father’s death he was cut off from his peers because of poverty, as if he was no longer equal to them.
Historians write that even after becoming emperor, the “feeling of not fit” in his surroundings, in the grand court and in the nobility remained with him throughout his life.
Nadir Shah’s first step towards ‘military revolution’ in Iran
At the age of fifteen, he joined the service of Baba Ali Beg, a local chieftain and governor of the city of Abiard. Baba Ali Beg was an important chieftain among the officers of Khorasan.
He started out as a firearm in the service of Baba Ali Beg and over time became his right hand.
This was the time when landmines had reached even this remote area of the Iranian Empire, and Nadir had laid the foundation of his career on the basis of modern warfare methods of the time.
In the coming months and years, Nadir Shah revolutionized Iran’s military capabilities.
In the year 1714-15, a Turkic tribe crossed the northern border of Khorasan and entered the kingdom. Fighting ensued, Baba Ali’s army had the upper hand, hundreds of attackers became prisoners.
Nadir must have played an important role, so Baba Ali chose Nadir Shah to convey this success to Isfahan, the capital of the empire, to Sultan Hussein, the Safavid emperor of Iran.
Along with the honor of appearing before the emperor, Nadir Shah also received one hundred tamans in the court as a reward. It was his first visit to Isfahan where he was introduced to a whole new world.
“According to one historical reference, Nadir was abused by some court officials and when he became emperor years later, he ordered the incident to be presented as a theater drama to entertain his courtiers.”
It was not a good experience to see the royal splendor of Nadir Shah and he could never like this thing.
This incident is another example of being miss fit in the environment around them. The courtiers could not recognize the capabilities of this tribe.
However, at that time perhaps no one could have imagined that his Safavid empire was rapidly moving towards its decline and the tribal Nadir Shah before him was first the last support of his empire and then soon to emerge as his emperor. Was.
Glimpses of the era of Shah Abbas Uruz, the most important emperor of the Safavid dynasty of Iran: the emperor of this Safavid dynasty, which ruled for more than two hundred years, “requested from the Afghans on 23 October 1722 to lay down arms” By doing this, the Afghan reached the camp (tent) of Mahmud Galzai.
The end of the Safavid Empire and the Afghan occupation of Iran
The 200-year-old Safavid Empire of Iran was challenged by the Ghazal Afghans from the east and it reached such a point that the emperor of the Safavid dynasty in Isfahan “on 23 October 1722, the Afghan Mahmud Galzai rode on the horse that the Afghans asked for to lay arms”. reached the camp (tent).”
By that time Nadir Shah had made Kalat near Mashhad his stronghold. In the year 1382, this city used to be the stronghold of Amir Timur.
This occupation strengthened the position of Nadir over other chieftains of the region.
In 1725–26, Tahmasp Qali Khan, the now “exile self-styled king” of the former Safavid Empire, was a small pawn on the Iranian Empire’s chessboard. Shortly after Isfahan fell into the hands of the Afghans, he declared his kingship.
But by then the northern and eastern parts of this hundreds of years old empire had been occupied by Russia and the Ottoman Empire. In the race to capture Iranian territories, the threat of war between these two great empires had also arisen.
Enemies of the ottomans
In this chaos, the dominance of Nadir Shah was increasing and he accepted the message of friendship from Tehmasp.
On September 19, 1726, Nadir Shah welcomed the Tahmasp in a grand ceremony, with the declaration of his subjugation. This was the day when Nadir Shah had grown from a regional figure to a national level chieftain.
Nadir Shah soon increased his stature by defeating a major rival of Tehmasp in a battle, and was now the commander-in-chief of the exiled emperor of the Iranian Empire.
Nadir Shah was given the title of Tahmasp Kali Khan (Slave of Tahmasp). Getting the name of the emperor was considered a matter of great honour. Nadir Shah also conquered the holy city of Mashhad to the emperor in the autumn of the same year.
Tehmasp’s power was increasing and during this time the Russians also started increasing their contacts. The Russians were not happy with the Ottomans acting on the Iranian Empire.
He announced not to interfere in the efforts of Shah Tahmasp and Nadir Shah to take back the kingdom. He was seeing both of them as enemies of the Ottomans.
Nadir Shah talks to beggars at Imam Raza’s tomb
As soon as Nadir Shah completed his capture of Mashhad, Imam went to attend Reza’s tomb and kissed the ground and thanked him for his success. Later he also increased the decoration of its dome and also built a new minaret which is still standing today. This expression of devotion must have pleased the military and religious circles of Nadir Shah.
At that time an anecdote of Nadir Shah also became famous. He asked a beggar who pretended to be blind outside the tomb, how long had he been praying at the tomb for the recovery of his eyes. He said that for two years. Nadir Shah told him that if his eyes are not getting better even after praying for two years, it means that his faith is very weak.
Nadir Shah told the beggar that if his eyes did not recover by the time he came out of the tomb, he would understand that his faith was not good and they would cut off his head.
Historians write that when Nadir Shah came back after a while, that fakir went ahead and said, “Miracles happened, miracles happened”. Nadir Shah smiled and said that faith is everything and left from there.
Historians write that within a few weeks by the end of 1726, Nadir Shah had risen from a simple tribal chief to a shining hope for the restoration of the Safavid Empire.
Shah Tahmaspi’s defeat
After the conquest of Mashhad in 1726, distances began to arise between Nadir and Shah Tahmasp. The courtiers left no stone unturned to fill Tehmasp’s ears. And in February 1727, he quietly left Mashhad and, having reached a Kurdish city, declared Nadir Shah a traitor and sought military help to take action against Nadir Shah throughout the kingdom.
Nadir also, without wasting any time, confiscated all the property of Tehmasp and his ministers in Mashhad, and with his brother Ibrahim Khan in charge, reached the Kurdish city of Khubhushan and laid siege to it. In short, Tehmasp, seeing the defeat, decided to compromise and returned to Mashhad amidst intense celebrations and celebrations on the day of Navroz on 21 March, during the two-week-long celebration, Nadir Shah married the daughter of a Kurdish chieftain. Married also.
However, historians say that neither Tehmasp’s acceptance of defeat nor Nadir’s marriage could end their differences. Nadir maintained that it was necessary to deal with the Abdali Afghans of Herat before moving on to Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid Empire, while Tehmasp was eager to restore the Safavid dynasty’s reign.
This was not the last time that the heir of a former empire and this future emperor had come face to face. On October 23, 1727, Tehmasp was forced to surrender once again to the nadir. He was very disappointed. During an expedition, Shah Tehmasp came out of the tent on the pretext of washing his hands at night and unsuccessfully tried to escape. They must have gone about a mile away from the tent, that Nadir Shah reached them.
He tried to slit his throat but Nadir stepped forward and snatched his dagger. After this incident Tehmasp did not make any serious attempt to part ways with Nadir Shah.
Nadir Shah’s army used to practice with real weapons: the eyes of a Greek merchant
How did Nadir Shah build such a powerful army? In the year 1729, Nadir Shah made the final decision to attack Herat on the occasion of Navroz in March. “It was an important campaign in which his small army was to face the most powerful enemy he had ever seen.”
But before that, Navroz was celebrated with great pomp, as they always did later. He took good care of his officers and distributed valuable gifts including horses and weapons.
In addition, to prepare for this war, Nadir Shah started large-scale exercises, which a Greek merchant has given an eye for history.
Those who consistently performed well in the exercise were appointed commanders of a hundred or one hundred and fifty soldiers, even if they were ordinary soldiers. Historians say that he ensured the selection of good officers and promotions were only on the basis of merit.
He writes that in practice “soldiers would attack each other from different positions, forming circles and counter circles… attacking, disintegrating and then regrouping in the same positions.”
Real weapons were used in these exercises and care was taken that no one was injured. Various techniques were practiced while riding on a horse. Each horseman used to practice differently even with different weapons.”
Such was the state of control and discipline that, after repeated exercises, there was such harmony between Nadir Shah and his officers in battle, as if they were following Nadir Shah’s mind. The Greek merchant has written that Nadir Shah himself used to be a part of every action during the exercise and this was his principle in the war as well.
Nadir Shah and Tehmasp left for the attack on Herat in May. Abdali Afghan too, seeing the gravity of the situation, forgetting their differences and united under the leadership of Allah Yar Khan. The two armies faced each other fifty kilometers outside Herat.
The withdrawal of the Afghans from Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid Empire
Nadir Shah got success in this war. Many Afghan warlords came forward and declared subordination. Tehmasp Shah and his courtiers were not happy but Nadir Shah welcomed these chieftains and in future Abdali Afghan proved to be a very reliable ally of Nadir Shah and an important part of the army.
This campaign had instilled confidence in the Iranians and they were now ready to face the Ghazai Afghans for the return of their empire.
On September 29, 1729, the two armies faced each other. The Afghans were defeated. Finally, on 9 December 1729, Nadir Shah welcomed Tehmasp Shah in a grand ceremony outside Isfahan. That is, Nadir Shah and Tahmasp Shah took back the Safavid capital from the Afghans.
Exordi writes that there are fewer official sources about the wars in Asia and the Middle East than about the wars in Europe at that time. Most of those who wrote about Nadir Shah’s campaigns were non-military, and one possibility, according to him, was that Nadir Shah himself wished so that his method of warfare would not be known to all.
Nadir Shah’s military revolution and its cost
There was a cost to Nadir Shah’s reliance on drills and gunpowder and recruiting soldiers on a permanent basis. This meant that soldiers needed to be available at all times for practice and encouraged in various ways. To take advantage of new technology and weapons, it was necessary for them to stay with the army.
It was not that he should be sent home with a new weapon and he would not come back. It was necessary to give them a good and timely salary. And in such a situation it was necessary to make arrangements for their clothes, accommodation and food. It was necessary to provide new weapons in place of the degrading weapons. Good horses were needed that could carry the load of riders and weapons. And to take advantage of the landmines, a large number of gunmen were needed.
Nadir Shah’s army was increasing all the time. In short, his army was costly to a disastrous extent. To maintain this army, Nadir was always thinking of new sources of income. And for this the people of the areas under their control were constantly burdened with heavy taxes and forced payments.
“An increase in the army, practice and a new reliance on munitions … a huge increase in expenditure, all of which were similar to the changes in Europe 150 years before that time.”
Exordi says that all these changes and new war requirements in Europe led to the improvement of the governance system there and the increase in economic resources. But Nadir Shah’s military revolution did not last long enough to cause changes like Europe.
Marriage of Nadir Shah and his son with Safavid princes
Tehmasp Shah wanted Nadir Shah to pursue the defeated Afghan ruler Ashraf Galzai and also recover from him the princes whom he had taken with him while absconding after the defeat.
Historians say that Nadir Shah, after a great deal of bargaining, decided to pursue the Ghazai Sultan Ashraf for the recovery of the Safavid princes, but in return he had the right to collect taxes throughout the kingdom except in Khorasan, Kerman and some other regions. was also achieved, so that the expenditure of the army could be met.
To strengthen this agreement with Shah Tahmasp, it was also decided that he and his son Raza Qali Shah would be married to Tahmasp’s two sisters. Nadir Shah was married to one of them, Razia Begum. In this way, Nadir Shah became the de facto ruler of the northern and eastern parts of the Iranian Empire and his two needs for money and legal status were also met.
Nadir Shah always kept a close watch on economic matters. In the years to come, he set up a network of officers, inspectors and spies for tax matters, and further strengthened the system of the Safavid Empire. Nadir Shah’s needs were immense and sometimes double tax was demanded without warning and harsh punishments were given for non-payment.
After his demand was accepted, Nadir Shah set out on December 24, 1729 with an army of twenty to twenty-five thousand men to pursue Ashraf from Isfahan. They came face to face near Shiraz. Once the Afghans attacked with full force, but they could not withstand the discipline and ammunition of Nadir Shah’s army. Ashraf fled from there, but was then killed by his old enemies while running from place to place.
Restoration of the western borders of the Iranian Empire
Nadir’s first priority was to restore Iran’s western borders by attacking the Ottomans. Moving forward, he defeated the Ottoman army in Yerevan in 1735, forcing them to conclude a peace agreement, under which Iran’s old borders were restored and the Ottoman army withdrew.
In this war, Russia sided with the Nadir against the Ottomans and itself withdrew from the Iranian territories of the Caspian Sea, which it had captured by taking advantage of the Afghan invasion of the Safavid Empire.
By the year 1735, apart from Kandahar, Nadir Shah had restored control of the Safavid Empire over all of its former territories. And then, with the consent of all the courtiers, tribal chiefs and high officials of Iran, accepted himself as the new emperor at a meeting in Moghan. There was no opposition to them. A mullah was murdered in a private assembly for speaking in favor of the maintenance of the Safavid monarchy.”
“It is worth noting that despite being famous as a tyrannical ruler of the last times and apart from the example of that one mullah, he achieved power almost non-violently on political grounds unlike those who followed him and those who came before him.”
“He himself became emperor, not by assassination, but by strategy, propaganda, intelligence, strong military support, and above all on the basis of military successes, removing Tehmasp from power.”
Nadir Shah turned to Delhi
With Nadir Shah on the throne, the western frontier of the empire was protected and he had complete control over Iran. In this situation, he headed east towards Kandahar. People within the empire paid a heavy price for the cost of this campaign, and the wheel of the economy came to a halt in many parts of the country.
After his success in Kandahar, he headed to Delhi on the pretext that the Mughal Empire had given refuge to the Afghans who wanted it. He crossed the old border between the Iranian and Mughal empires, conquered Kabul, and his next destination was Delhi.
He reached Delhi in March 1739 after defeating the army of Mughal emperor Mohammad Shah at Karnal, north of Delhi. During this there were some riots in which some Iranian soldiers were killed. Exordi writes, “Away from his home, so close to the wealth of the Mughal Empire, he could not have lost control of the situation.” Nadir Shah “ordered the massacre in which an estimated 30,000 people were killed, most of whom were innocent civilians.”
“Earlier apart from Maidan-e-Jung, Nadir Shah had achieved all his goals without unnecessary bloodshed. But after Delhi he may have decided that his earlier principles had become unnecessary.
Nadir Shah also gifted all the Mughal territories west of the Indus river along with a large amount of jewellery, gold and silver from Delhi. The total value of the entire property acquired was about seven hundred million rupees. It is estimated that this money was more than what the French government spent on the war that lasted from 1756 to 1763, which included subsidies to Austria and sea and land wars.
Among the most famous jewels found by Nadir Shah were the Kohinoor, Dariya-i-Noor and Taj Mah diamonds, which had a bloody history of their own in the decades to come. His aim of attacking Delhi was to obtain the necessary cash for military operations in the west of Iran, which Iran did not have until his throne.
Nadir Shah did not remove the Mughal emperor from the throne and before returning, presented him with many gifts and decorated his crown with his own hands, the purpose of which was to reaffirm his absolute sovereignty. In response, the Mughal emperor Mohammad Shah offered him all the western parts of Sindh from Tibet and Kashmir to the sea. “The deal was definitely pre-determined.”
Nadir Shah echoes in the royal courts of Europe and Russia
The victory against the Mughal Empire raised Nadir Shah’s ‘world fame to new heights’. “The story of almost two months in India spread to every corner of the world through businessmen and businessmen. Reports were sought from representatives of European companies and clergy in India about Nadir Shah.”
Exordi writes that the actions of Nadir Shah became the beauty of London newspapers. “The Ottoman and Russian royal courts received gifts from the Nadi Rasha, including elephants and ornaments, shortly afterwards,” writes Exordi.
This did not stop there, within a few months, books about Nadir Shah began to be published in various European languages, and almost a generation later, not everyone, if not the least educated, knew his name.
“Delhi was the height of Nadir Shah’s life.” After a stay of about two months, he left Delhi on 16 May 1739.
But after Delhi, Nadir Shah became a victim of break-up. He became ill, cruelty, anger and greed were now his personality and he was eventually murdered by his own officers.
Nadir Shah: Fall after Rise
Upon his return from India, Nadir Shah learned that his son Raza Qali, whom he had succeeded in his absence, had executed the former Safavid emperors Tahmasp and Abbas. Apart from this, Nadir Shah was also unhappy with his son’s huge court. Nadir Shah took away the post of deputy from Raza Kali. After this, there was a rift in the father-son relationship and Nadir Shah got the idea that his son was conspiring against him.
After India, Nadir Shah made a successful campaign for Turkestan and marched towards Dagestan, but there he was unsuccessful. There was a shortage of food in his army. By then Nadir Shah’s health had also deteriorated. He probably “had a liver disease that started with malaria and was made worse by drinking too much alcohol.”
Exordi writes that along with this the anger inside him was also increasing and mental problems had also started. Meanwhile, in the year 1742, he was told that his son Raza Kali had planned to kill him. Raza Kali refuted these allegations but Nadir Shah could not believe it and Nadir Shah had his eyes removed, after which the question of his sitting on the throne ended forever.
“The failure in Dagestan, his illness and above all, the regret of having his son’s eyes removed, created such a crisis in his life that it broke him psychologically and he could never come out of it again.”
Exordi writes that Nadir Shah’s family was always very important to him, perhaps because of the poverty and inferiority he felt as a child. He says that till then for Nadir Shah the mutual loyalty of his family was an unshakable aspect and this trust provided the basis on which he founded an empire. “Now this foundation was shaken, and they had lost their former strength… and their physical and mental health deteriorated rapidly.
After the failure of Dagestan, according to some reports, a well-planned new army was created for action in Ottoman Iraq, which was “the most powerful army of any country in its time.”
Suddenly had to go to boyarna from kabul
Nadir Shah reached Kabul on 2 December 1739 after crossing several rivers in bad weather from Delhi. The destination was his empire in the west but he had to once again turn to India. The governor of Sindh, Khuda Yar Khan, refused to accept his submission.
Perhaps Khuda Yar Khan thought that the journey from the snowy mountains of Afghanistan to the hot deserts and plains of Sindh would be very difficult. But Nadir Shah was not one of those people who would have ignored such a thing.
Nadir Shah traveled a thousand miles in two months to reach Sindh and in the end Khuda Yar Khan was arrested in Umarkot and he also had to lose his treasure. Including “some valuables of Shah Sultan Hussein, the last emperor of the Safavid Empire of Iran, which had reached him through the Ghazai Afghans.
‘World’s biggest army’
Nadir Shah sent his artillery to the fore with hundreds of new guns. According to an officer keeping records of his army’s salary, at the beginning of this campaign of 1743, his army consisted of 3,75,000 soldiers, of which Shia Iranians were a very small number. The army included “60 thousand Turkman and Uzbek, 70 thousand Afghan and Indian, 65 thousand Khorasan and 1 lakh 20 thousand from western Iran, and 60 thousand soldiers from Azerbaijan and Qaf Mountains.”
This army was even bigger than the two big powers of Europe, together with both Austria and Prussia. But its cost was equally high.
After the Delhi campaign, three years of tax exemption in Iran and the economic prosperity it would bring were now a part of the past.
Exordi writes that Nadir Shah knew what the implications of such a massive new campaign would be, but now he probably did not care. In the year 1740s, the difficulties created by the campaign of Baghdad increased. The economy stalled and people were forced to leave their homes and hide in the forests to avoid tax collectors. People were forced to migrate in large numbers to Baghdad, Basra and east towards India.
According to various estimates, “trade fell five times less than before the year 1722.” The empire had been “relatively peaceful” since Nadir Shah’s march to Kandahar in 1736, but taxes, despair and problems led to new rebellions.
“The army and its imposition of taxes is a permanent aspect in the story of Nadir Shah.”
Nadir Shah ordered action in the Ottoman Empire around Baghdad, Basra, Sumara, Najaf, Karbala and Shat al-Arab. The siege of Karkuk and Mosul was ordered.
The war was stretching for a long time that suddenly Nadir Shah received a message from the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire that he was ready to negotiate for peace if he retreated from their borders. Historians wonder more than this message that Nadir Shah, in response to this message, ordered his army to withdraw from Mosul on October 20, 1743. The siege of Basra was still going on but there was a lot of celebration in Istanbul.
Everyone wondered, was it the same Nadir Shah who had traveled hundreds of kilometers from Kabul to Sindh on receiving a complaint some time back?
“He had an army in Ottoman Iraq that he had never commanded before. This included experienced soldiers from the Indian campaign. Outside Mosul alone, he had 200,000 men in command.”
“It would not be wrong to say that it was probably the most powerful army in the world at that time in terms of its size and capability.” Exordi writes that it was a campaign to force the Ottoman Empire to kneel with a noose, as had happened before in Bukhara and Delhi.”
But Nadir Shah withdrew only after 40 days of siege.
Historians give many explanations for difficult war situations and such, but all this was nothing new for Nadir Shah and he made his place only after overcoming such difficulties. His ailments are also mentioned but that too was not a new thing. It has also been said that siege warfare may not have been his strength, he preferred to fight and move on the field.
But Exordi believes that he has lost the will to fight. He no longer had the focus to command this huge army.
“It may not be a mere coincidence that Nadir Shah ordered the end of the siege of Mosul on the same day that he had his son Raza Kali Khan’s eyes removed exactly a year earlier.”
They call it the ‘turning point’ of Nadir Shah’s life. When, in practice, his period of conquest “ended in silence rather than with a bang.”
“His sword, his army were all there, equally alert and formidable and ready to do anything and go anywhere at his behest… Much of Ottoman Iraq was under his control and the prospect of advancing to Istanbul was very real. ..The leadership of the Islamic world was his target. But he had destroyed his son to whom he always wanted to inherit this greatness.”
One day, suddenly leaving his army and war campaign, he left for Karbala and Najaf to visit Shia shrines with some women of his harem, a small security squad of cavalry.
An official of the Ottoman Empire who visited him during these ziarats (pilgrimages) left a record that ‘though Nadir Shah was still handsome, his face showed signs of age and mental confusion, his eyes were pale and He had lost many teeth. And he looked eighty years old.”
Exordi writes that he was also treated by a French priest in those days and said that he was probably suffering from jaundice.
Nadir Shah’s war campaigns did not end here. But now in his story, the problems and burdens of his citizens and the cruelty of Nadir Shah were beginning to weigh heavily in his story.
Nadir shah’s last night
Historian Humayun Kotzian writes that after the agreement with the Ottoman Empire in the year 1746, both the empires accepted the boundaries of the year 1639. However, he writes that in the meantime the atrocities of Nadir Shah were increasing day by day.
He wrote that “While going to Sistan to quell an insurgency, he showed signs of mental imbalance.” Nadir Shah’s attitude became so strange that his family and close associates saw their lives in danger.
And then one day Nadir Shah, feeling the threat from his Iranian commanders, handed over the responsibility of his security to the Abdali Afghans and ordered the Iranian commanders to be killed.
It was the evening of June 19, 1747. Michael Exordi writes that Nadir Shah called in his army, Ahmed Khan Abdali, a 24-year-old commander of 4,000 soldiers.
Exordi writes that when Nadir Shah conquered Kandahar in the year 1738, the young Ahmed Khan Abdali was imprisoned in one of his prisons. Ahmed Khan Abdali’s current position in the Iranian army was due to Nadir Shah.
Nadir Shah told him that he suspected that his Iranian guards wanted to kill him and ordered Ahmed Khan Abdali to arrest the guards the next morning and take charge of the security. But this conversation was probably overheard by the Iranian guards.
Nadir Shah’s Iranian squad decided that they had only one night. A group of 70 trusted courtiers and officers were formed for the operation. Nadir Shah went to sleep that night in his wife Chaki’s tent instead of his usual tent. Historians believe that the details of the events of that night have reached them only because of Chucky.
Nadir Shah lay down on the bed telling Chaki that if he fell into a deep sleep, he should be woken up. When the attackers went to the door of the harem, most of them refused to come forward. Only a few went ahead and killed a black transgender protester. Chaki’s eyes opened with the noise and he also woke Nadir Shah. Nadir Shah immediately caught hold of his sword, but his leg got entangled in something and he fell. And in the same situation, an attacker Salar Khan stabbed him in the neck and shoulder and cut off his hand but then he himself got mad.
“Nadir Shah was lying on the ground and bleeding profusely. He tried unsuccessfully to get up. He appealed to the attackers not to kill him. But another attacker, Mohammad Khan Qajar, stepped forward and hit his head in a jiffy. severed from the torso.”
Simultaneously, “The story of Nadir Shah begins from oblivion to become a picture of tragedy, after brutal conspiracies, military successes, lavishness, and riches, mistakes, disappointments, extreme brutal actions and goes through mental agony to death.” “
The decade after the death of Nadir Shah is a story of ‘violence, anarchy and destruction’. Exordi writes that his army, in which he encouraged competition between different commanders and castes, could not remain united after him. Like Alexander the Great’s army, his army was divided into various generals, including Ahmad Khan Abdali, who founded the Durrani Empire.
Exordi writes that during the reign of Nadir Shah for the first time most of his soldiers were given landmines and a great emphasis was placed on drill and training, which had begun in Europe a century earlier. As the army expanded, so did its expenditure and they made changes to make the state structure of the empire more active. These were all things that were generally considered to be the hallmark of Europe.
“If Nadir Shah had remained in power for some more time and ruled wisely, and then transferred power to an able successor, the Iranian administration would have reformed and the economy changed radically, as in Europe, at the expense of his successful military. I was done.”
This would have established “a modern state in Iran that would have been able to withstand the onslaught of imperialist powers beginning in the next century.”
