Me Mahmud Hotaki
Mir Mahmud Hotaki (* 1697 ? † April 25, 1725 in Isfahan ) was an Afghan tribal leader who defeated the Safavid dynasty and became the Shah of Persia in 1722 . He was the eldest son of Mir Wais Hotak , who was the leader of the Ghilzai in Kandahar and who successfully rose up against the Safavid Shah Sultan Hosein . When Mir Wais died in 1715, his brother Abd al-Aziz succeeded him, but the Ghilzai persuaded Mahmud to take power, so that in 1717 he killed his uncle and became the new ruler.
Mahmud takes the throne of Persia
In 1720 Mahmud and the Ghilazi defeated the opposing Afghan tribe of the Abdali (later the Durrani ). He sent the heads of a few defeated Abdalis to Shah Sultan Hosein, who made Mahmud governor of Kandahar. Nevertheless Mahmud wanted the whole Persian Empire for himself. He began a campaign against Kerman in 1719 and besieged the city again in 1721. But Mahmud failed and a siege of the city of Yazd in 1722 was unsuccessful, so Mahmud now turned to the capital, Isfahan.
Rather than waiting and resisting a siege on the city that the small Afghan army would not win, Sultan Hosein marched out of the city to meet Mahmud's forces at Golnabad. Here the royal army was defeated on March 8th and fled back to Isfahan. The Shah was advised to flee to the provinces and raise more soldiers there, but he decided to stay in the capital, which was now completely surrounded by the Afghans. The siege lasted from March to October 1722. Since he had no artillery, Mahmud was forced to besiege the city for a long time in order to subdue the Persians through hunger. Sultan Hosein's command during the siege showed his usual lack of determination and the loyalty of his provincial governors wavered in the face of such incompetence. In the end, hunger and disease forced Isfahan to give up. The siege is said to have killed 80,000 people. On October 23, Sultan Hosein abdicated and recognized Mahmud as the new Shah of Iran.
Mahmud's rule as a Shah
At first, Mahmud was generous and provided the royal family and the starving urban population with food. But when the son of Sultan Hosein Tahmasp II appointed himself Shah in November, Mahmud became a competitor. Mahmud sent an army against Tahmasps II main camp in Qazvin . Tahmasp escaped and the Afghans took the city. But the city population rose in January 1723 because of the bad treatment against the conquerors. The uprising was a success, and Mahmud worried about the reactions when the surviving Afghans returned to Isfahan with news of the defeat. Fearing a rebellion, Mahmud invited his Persian ministers and nobles to a meeting under false pretenses and massacred them. He also judged up to 3,000 members of the royal guard. At the same time the Ottomans and the Russians seized the opportunity and conquered parts of the empire.
His failure to extend his rule to all of Persia made Mahmud depressed and suspicious. He also had doubts about the loyalty of his own men since many Afghans preferred his cousin Ashraf Khan . In February 1725, Mahmud believed a rumor that one of Hosein's sons Safi Mirza had fled, and so he ordered the deaths of all other Safavid princes. When Sultan Hosein tried to stop this massacre, he was injured but was able to save two of his children. Mahmud began to succumb to madness as well as physical decline. On April 22, 1725, a group of Afghan officers freed Aschraf from his prison, where he was locked up in Mahmud. They started a palace revolt and put Aschraf on the throne. Mahmud died three days later, either from illness or, as it was claimed, from murder.
Individual evidence
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- Michael Axworthy : The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant Hardcover 348 pages (26 July 2006) Publisher: IB Tauris Language: English ISBN 1-85043-706-8
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Me Mahmud Hotaki |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Ruler from the Hotaki dynasty in Persia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1697 |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 25, 1725 |
| Place of death | Isfahan |