Ahmad Shāh Durrānī, also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī, was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is often regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan. In June 1747, he was appointed as King of the Afghans by a loya jirga in Kandahar, where he set up his capital.
Greater Khorasan is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West and Central Asia that encompasses western and northern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, the eastern halves of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, and portions of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
The Battle of Damghan or Battle of Mehmandoost was fought on September 29 to October 5, 1729, near the city of Damghan. It resulted in an overwhelming victory for Nader Shah and the Safavid cause he had taken up, though by itself it did not end Ashraf's rule in Iran, it was a significant triumph which led to further successes in the following engagements of the campaign to restore Tahmasp II to the throne. The battle was followed by another one in Murcheh-Khort, a village near Isfahan. Nader's forces were victorious in both battles, which led him to remove the Ghilzai Afghan dynasty from their short stay on the Persian throne. The Hotakis were forced back to their territory in what is now southern Afghanistan.
Abbas III was a son of Shah Tahmasp II and Shahpari Begum of the Safavid dynasty and reigned from 1732 to 1736. After the deposition of his father by Nader Khan the infant Abbas was appointed nominal ruler of Iran on 7 September 1732. Nader Khan, who was the real ruler of the country, assumed the positions of deputy of state and viceroy. Abbas III was deposed in March 1736, when Nader Khan had himself crowned as Nader Shah. This marked the official end of the Safavid dynasty. Abbas was sent to join his father in prison in Sabzevar, Khorasan.
Shāh Mahmūd Hotak,, or Shāh Mahmūd Ghiljī, also known by his epithet, The Conqueror, was the ruler of the Hotak dynasty who overthrew Safavid dynasty to become the king of Persia from 1722 until his death in 1725.
Nader Shah Afshar was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian history, ruling as shah of Iran (Persia) from 1736 to 1747, when he was assassinated during a rebellion. He fought numerous campaigns throughout the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia, such as the battles of Herat, Mihmandust, Murche-Khort, Kirkuk, Yeghevārd, Khyber Pass, Karnal, and Kars. Because of his military genius, some historians have described him as the Napoleon of Persia, the Sword of Persia, or the Second Alexander. Nader belonged to the Turkoman Afshars, one of the seven Qizilbash tribes that helped the Safavid dynasty establish their power in Iran.
The siege of Kandahar began when Nader Shah's Afsharid army invaded southern Afghanistan to topple the last Hotaki stronghold of Loy Kandahar, which was held by Hussain Hotaki. It took place in the Old Kandahar area of the modern city of Kandahar in Afghanistan and lasted until March 24, 1738, when the Hotaki Afghans were defeated by the Persian army.
The Ottoman–Persian War of 1730–1735 or Ottoman–Iranian War of 1730–1735 was a conflict between the forces of Safavid Iran and those of the Ottoman Empire from 1730 to 1735. After Ottoman support had failed to keep the Ghilzai Afghan invaders on the Persian throne, the Ottoman possessions in western Persia, which were granted to them by the Hotaki dynasty, came under risk of re-incorporation into the newly resurgent Persian Empire. The talented Safavid general, Nader, gave the Ottomans an ultimatum to withdraw, which the Ottomans chose to ignore. A series of campaigns followed, with each side gaining the upper hand in a succession of tumultuous events that spanned half a decade. Finally, the Persian victory at Yeghevard made the Ottomans sue for peace and recognize Persian territorial integrity and Persian hegemony over the Caucasus.
The campaigns of Nader Shah, or the Naderian Wars, were a series of conflicts fought in the early to mid-eighteenth century throughout Central Eurasia primarily by the Iranian conqueror Nader Shah. His campaigns originated from the overthrow of the Iranian Safavid dynasty by the Hotaki Afghans. In the ensuing collapse and fragmentation of the empire after the capture of the Iranian capital of Isfahan by the Afghans, a claimant to the Safavid throne, Tahmasp II, accepted Nader into his service. After having subdued north-west Iran as well as neutralising the Abdali Afghans to the east and turning Tahmasp II into a vassal, Nader 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 returned to the throne as a restored Safavid monarch.
The siege of Isfahan was a six-month-long siege of Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, by the Hotaki-led Afghan army. It lasted from March to October 1722 and resulted in the city's fall and the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty.
The conquest of Khorasan by Safavid loyalist forces against separatists in Khorasan was Nader Shah's first major military campaign which he waged on behalf of the new Safavid pretender to the throne, Tahmasp II. It would propel him into the centre of the political landscape of war-torn early eighteenth-century Persia.
The Battle of Sangan, was an engagement involving the Loyalist forces of Tahmasp II of Safavid Iran led by Nader and the Abdali Afghan tribes in and further beyond southern Khorasan in the autumn of 1727. This armed struggle was one of the initial battles between the resurgent Safavid cause and that of the Afghans. The engagement technically ended in a Safavid victory.
The Campaign of Herat consisted of a series of intermittent and fluid engagements culminating in the finale of Nader's military operations against the Abdali Pashtuns. Nader having recently concluded a successful campaign against his own monarch and prince, the badly humiliated Tahmasp II, set out from Mashad on 4 May 1729, making sure that the Shah also accompanied him on this journey where he could be kept under close supervision.
The Battle of Kafer Qal'eh was a series of clashes which decided the outcome to the Herat Campaign. In its culminating stage the battle bears some resemblances to the battle of Sangan although it was both preceded and succeeded by numerous other minor skirmishes and engagements.
The restoration of Tahmasp II to the Safavid throne took place in the latter part of 1729 by a series of battles fought between Nader, Tahmasp's commander-in-chief and Ashraf Hotaki. Despite nominally bringing Tahmasp to the seat of power, true authority still rested with Nader who had ever since the debacle in northern Khorasan managed to seize Tahmasp II as his vassal. Hotak was defeated. As for Afghan rule, the Ghilzai Afghans were ejected from the Iranian Plateau permanently and in the following years were re-annexed by Nader whence they were once again absorbed into the Persian empire. The Safavids under Tahmsap II were restored.
Nader's Western Persia campaign of 1730 was his first against perhaps his most formidable of adversaries, namely the Ottomans, where he proved triumphant in conquest. The great successes of his expedition, however, were rendered null when Shah Tahmasp II decided to take personal command of the theatre in Nader's absence, forcing a furious Nader to return and rectify the situation after forcing Tahmasp's abdication in favour of his infant son Abbas III.
The campaign of 1731 was a failed attempt by Tahmasp II of the Safavid dynasty to launch an offensive into Ottoman held Caucasus which ended in a disastrous defeat with all of Nader's gains during the previous year being lost. The result of this particular military catastrophe was still overturned with Nader's return from the east but would have much more significant impact on the Safavid dynasty itself as Tahmasp II sealed his own fate by initiating this ill fated expedition.
The Herat Campaign of 1731 took place when Nader Shah who had already successfully driven the Ottomans from western Iran and southern Azerbaijan had to cut his campaign short to deal with the revolt of the Abdalis of Herat who were provoked into bearing arms against their Persian overlords by Hussein Hotaki of Qandahar. The conflict resulted in the re-establishment of Persian rule over Herat.
Reza Qoli Mirza Afshar was the eldest son of Nader Shah, King of Afsharid Iran. After his father's coronation in 1736, Reza Qoli, aged 17, became the Governor of the province of Khorasan. During his tenure, he subdued rebellious khans and marched up to Bukhara to put an end to the Khanate of Bukhara, his father's enemies. Before heading off to India, Nader Shah appointed Reza Qoli the regent of Iran. Reza Qoli ensured peace through harsh measures when collecting taxes and executed people for petty crimes. He had Tahmasp II and Abbas III, two pretenders to the throne, killed, which caused an uproar among the people. When Nader Shah returned from India, he dismissed Reza Qoli as regent, snubbing him for his actions during the regency.
The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly referred to as Afsharid Iran or the Afsharid Empire, was an Iranian empire established by the Turkoman Afshar tribe in Iran's north-eastern province of Khorasan, establishing the Afsharid dynasty that would rule over Iran during the mid-eighteenth century. The dynasty's founder, Nader Shah, was a successful military commander who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty in 1736, and proclaimed himself Shah.
Safavid dynasty 