Titans of History

NADER SHAH

1688–1747

Nader of Isfahan invaded [the Mughal Empire] with his troops resembling the waves of the sea, and put all the natives of the provinces of Kabul, the Punjab and Delhi at once to the sword.

Muhammad Muhsin Sadiki, Jewel of Samsam (c. 1739)

Nader Shah of Iran was the self-made empire-builder who dominated his native country, defeated the Mughal emperors and Ottoman sultans, conquered vast new territories, stole the Peacock Throne for himself, and overthrew the Safavid dynasty to raise himself from enslaved orphan and freebooting bandit to the throne of King of Kings. But he sank into paranoid brutality, frenzied killing and finally the insanity that led to his murder. Known as the Second Alexander, he was the tragic and murderous Napoleon of Iran.

Nader was a member of a Turkmen tribe that inhabited a northern area of Iran. He began life in obscurity. His father died when he was young, and Nader and his mother were subsequently abducted and pressed into slavery by a band of raiding tribesmen. Nader, though, soon escaped and entered the military service of a local chieftain, a position in which he distinguished himself and rose rapidly through the ranks. But in due course the headstrong Nader abandoned the chieftain and embarked on a life of banditry. By the mid-1720s he could count on some 5000 followers.

This flouting of central authority was scarcely surprising; this was, after all, a time of deep unrest within Persia. Nader’s home tribe had always given fealty to the Safavid shahs who had ruled the country for the previous two hundred years. Yet, by the early 18th century, the Safavid empire was in terminal decline. In 1719 it had been challenged by its former Afghan subjects who had invaded Persia proper, and within three years the shah, Soltan Hossein, had been deposed. In response, Nader had initially yielded to the Afghan conquerors, but he later opted for rebellion. He now allied himself with Tahmasp, the son of Soltan Hossein, who was attempting to regain his father’s throne. Nader’s military capabilities were soon recognized, and in 1726 he was appointed supreme commander of Tahmasp’s forces.

By 1729 Nader had decisively defeated the Afghans and restored Tahmasp to the throne. He proceeded to attack the Ottoman Turks and reconquer the territory they had seized from Persia in Azerbaijan and Mesopotamia. Yet he was diverted by a domestic rebellion, and while he dealt with this, Shah Tahmasp attempted to bolster his own military credentials by launching a new assault on the Ottoman empire. It proved to be a disastrous move, and most of Nader’s work was now undone. Incandescent with rage at Tahmasp’s incompetence, in 1732 Nader deposed him and replaced him with his infant son, Abbas III—although Nader, as regent, wielded the real power.

By 1735 Nader had once more regained the territory lost to the Ottomans. But such battlefield accomplishments were no longer enough for Nader. In January 1736 he convened an assembly of Persia’s most prominent political and religious figures and “suggested” that the youthful shah be deposed and he, Nader, be appointed in his place. Unsurprisingly, the assembled notables gave their consent.

Nader now embarked on a spree of conquest that would earn him the epithet the Second Alexander. In 1738 he attacked Kandahar, the last redoubt of the Afghans. The city was leveled and a new town, Naderabad, named after the new shah, was built in its place. Nader also sent his navy across the Persian Gulf, where he subjugated Bahrain and Oman. Then in 1739 he launched the campaign for which he would become most infamous: his assault on the Mughal empire in India.

The main Mughal armies were obliterated at the Battle of Karnal in February 1739, leaving the way open to Delhi, the Mughal capital. On arriving at the city, Nader ordered a massacre of its inhabitants, resulting in the deaths in a single day of between 20,000 and 30,000 people. The city was then ransacked and all manner of treasures carried back to Persia—including the Peacock Throne, which would thereafter symbolize the shah’s authority. But Nader’s appetite for conquest was not yet satiated, and, as he pushed into central Asia, he took on Ottomans, Russians and Uzbeks.

In 1741 Nader survived an assassination attempt, after which he became ever more paranoid. Convinced that his eldest son, Reza Qoli Mirza, had been involved in the attempt on his life, he had him blinded, while the alleged fellow-conspirators were put to death. The growing severity of Nader’s rule, far from crushing dissent, served only to provoke fresh bouts of unrest. These uprisings were met with ever more ferocious reprisals, and Nader was reputed to have had towers of skulls constructed as a demonstration of the price of disloyalty. At the same time, the ruthless discipline he imposed on his own soldiers grew increasingly harsh. This inclination toward cruelty was ultimately to prove fatal, for in 1747, while on his way to confront yet another rebellion, Nader was murdered by disgruntled troops.

Thousands died at his hands; his taxes and wars had ruined his own people and at his death, his empire fell to pieces. Yet his was an astonishing achievement. He was as brilliant as he was brutal: centuries later, Stalin studied Nader Shah as a man to admire for his flawed but pitiless grandeur.