Nader Shah

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Nader, Shah of Iran (Persia); Painting from ~ 1750
Equestrian portrait of the Nader Shah in Jonas Hanway's Reliable History of English Action through Russia, across the Caspian Sea, to Persia, the Tartarey and Turkey, Armenia and China , Leipzig 1769
Nader Shah's coin with the official title: Nader King of Persia Chosrau Conqueror of the Earth

Nader Shah Afshar ( Persian نادر شاه افشار Nādir Shāh Afshār , DMG Nāder Šāh-e Afšār ; born on October 22, 1688 in Dastgerd in Khorasan ; died on June 20, 1747 in Quchan ), actually Nader Qoli (نادر قلی, DMG Nāder Qolī ), with the title (before his accession to the throne) Ṭahmāsp Qulī ( Persian طهماسب قلی, DMG Ṭahmāseb-e Qolī , ' Sklave des Ṭahmāsp ', historically written Thamas Kulikan in German), ruled as Shah of Persia from 1736 to 1747 and founded the Afsharid dynasty . Because of his military abilities, he was referred to by some historians as the "second Alexander " or " Napoleon of Persia". In his time, Persia stretched from the Caucasus to the Indus and to the south bank of the Persian Gulf .

Life

Nader was born in Dastgerd in Khorasan in the Oghuz Qirqlu strain, a sub-tribe of Afshar . His father, an impoverished peasant farmer, was a shepherd and died when Nader was a child. Nader and his mother were captured by raiding Uzbeks and sold as slaves, but he escaped and found shelter with the Afshars . There he grew up - at first probably as the leader of youthful bandits - and under the care of the tribal leaders became a military leader who also conquered the Kalat fortress .

When the Pashtuns took power in the empire in 1719 and founded the Hotaki dynasty , Nader was recruited and promoted by the Safavid Tahmasp II. After he and his bandits had conquered the city of Nishapur on behalf of the Shah, he was appointed general, so that he Took on the title Tahmasp Quli . Nader went with 5,000 men against the Hotaki and defeated them in 1729 in a battle near Damghan . The Pashtuns withdrew to their area in Kandahar in 1730 . Shortly before - in 1729 - Tahmasp had been promoted to Shah in Isfahan . Nader dropped his nickname Tahmasp Quli and was appointed imperial administrator (Wakīl ad-daula) and viceroy (Nāʾeb as-salṭana) .

Tahmasp II started a war against the Ottomans , who had used the chaos of the Hotaki rule for incursions into Persia, and lost the provinces of Georgia and Armenia in the process . When Nader came to Isfahan, with the help of the Persian princes, he deposed the incapable regent Tahmasp as a Shah and exiled him to Khorasan. Instead of Tahmasp, Nader put the eight-month-old son Tahmasp as Abbas III. on the throne. Abbas was later deposed, and after his death Nader crowned himself ruler on March 8, 1736 in the Azerbaijani Mughan steppe . Nader was able to defeat the Ottomans in several battles and thus regain all the lost territories. In order to more easily achieve his goals in traditional Sunni territories, he declared Shiism, which the Safavids had elevated to the state religion, as the “fifth” of the four traditional Sunni schools of law under the name Jafariya ( Arabic الجعفرية, DMG al-Ǧa'fariyya ) to overcome the religious division in his empire.

Nader Shah on the peacock throne

In 1738 he invaded Afghanistan, conquered Kandahar and Balch , occupied Ghazni as well as Kabul and in Pakistan Lahore on his conquest towards India . At the end of 1738 he crossed the Indus and defeated the Mughals in the Battle of Karnal on February 27, 1739. He took the Mughal ruler Muhammad Shah hostage and sacked the capital Delhi . Around 30,000 people died in the process. When Nader Shah left the city in May 1739, he took thousands of young people with him as slaves. On this campaign he also captured the famous peacock throne , which became the symbol of all Persian rulers. The loot also included "700 elephants, 4000 camels and 12,000 horses", they pulled wagons that were all loaded with gold, silver and precious stones, and the famous diamonds Koh-i-Noor ("Mountain of Light") and were among the looted treasures Darya-ye Noor ("Sea of ​​Light"). With this huge booty worth around 700 million rupees (around 126.6 million euros today), Nader was able to exempt the Persians from all taxes for three years. The gems were later the subject of bloody battles and were greeted by the Qajar and Pahlavi -Monarchen as crown jewels used.

In 1740, Nader Shah attacked the Uzbeks in Transoxania . On the other hand, he built a large fleet with which he wrested Bahrain from the Arabs . In 1743 he conquered Oman . After an assassination attempt in 1741, he had his son Reza Quli Mirza blinded because he suspected him. Over time, Nader began to suspect conspiracies against himself everywhere, so that he had many people suspected of him executed. During his campaigns he is said to have had the heads of his decapitated enemies piled up in pyramids. In 1743 he had the Dair Mar Elia monastery destroyed and the 150 monks killed. The campaigns of Nader were described by Abd al-Karim Kashmiri .

In 1746 Nader was able to take possession of the holy city of Najaf with a treaty with the Ottomans . But a year later - 1747 - Nader Shah was murdered in his tent by his generals during a campaign to put down a Kurdish rebellion in Khorasan.

In Nader's place came his nephew Adil Shah . But this then got into fighting against his brother Ebrāhim Shah Afshār and Shah Ruch , a grandson of Nader Shah, and was later deposed. Almost all provincial governors declared their independence and the great empire crumbled and fell into chaos. But in 1760 Karim Khan Zand was able to take over the leadership and stabilize and save the empire, after Ahmad Shah Durrani had previously founded the independent Durrani empire in the east , which later became the pioneer of modern Afghanistan .

Nader's son rescued some of his faithful to Semlin in Europe, where the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa had him baptized and educated. He was in Austrian military service under the name Baron von Semlin and participated in the Seven Years War with distinction; he died at an advanced age in 1824 in the Viennese suburb of Leopoldstadt .

literature

  • Michael Axworthy: The Sword of Persia. Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant. IB Tauris, London a. a. 2006, ISBN 978-1-85043-706-2 .
  • Laurence Lockhart: Nadir Shah. A Critical Study Based Mainly Upon Contemporary Sources. London 1938.
  • Peter Lamborn Wilson , Karl Schlamminger: Weaver of Tales. Persian Picture Rugs / Persian tapestries. Linked myths. Callwey, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7667-0532-6 , pp. 79-139 ( The Kings ), here: pp. 90-92 ( Nader Schah Afschar ) and p. 122 f. ( Nader Shah ).

Web links

Commons : Nader Schah  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gottlob-Nathan Fischer, Friedrich von Gentz ​​(Ed.): German monthly. Volume 24, 1797, p. 244. in the Google book search
  2. ↑ Abraham Hyacinth Anquetil-Du-Perron: Historical and Chronological Treatises of India. , 1788, p. 35. in the Google book search Journal der Chirurgie und Augenheilkunde , Volume 32, 1843, p. 277. in the Google book search
  3. ↑ Named after the 6th Shiite Imam Jafar as-Sādiq .
  4. ↑ See Der Islam II , Fischer-Weltgeschichte, Frankfurt / M. 1971, p. 176 f.
  5. ^ William Dalrymple : The East India Company: The original corporate raiders , March 4, 2015
  6. ↑ Michael Axworthy : Iran. World empire of the spirit. From Zoroaster to today. Supplemented, updated and revised edition. Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-8031-3636-7 , p. 170 f.
predecessor Office successor
Abbas III. (Safawide) Shah of Persia
1736–1747 		Adil Shah (Afsharide)
personal data
SURNAME Nader Shah
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nadir Qoli Beg; Tahmasp-Qoli Khan; Nadir Shah Afshar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Shah of Persia (1736–1747)
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1688
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1747