Afsharid Dynasty – A meteor in the dark sky era of Iranian history

The Hotaki dynasty ruled Iran for seven years. With the arrival of Nader Shah Afshar in the political arena of Iran and the kicked out of the Hotaki dynasty, this great military commander established the Afsharid dynasty. There is no accurate information about Nader Afshar until he was 40 years old; he was the head of the Afsharian tribe, a tribe of Turkmens who inhabited the north of Khorasan province.

After the kicked out of Afghans from Iran, Nader Afshar helped Tahmasp II of the Safavid dynasty to be the king of Iran, then began to eliminate the rest of the invader dynasties. Tahmasp II Safavid due to the services of Nader Afshar sent him as the warden of Khorasan, Kerman, Sistan, and Mazandaran provinces. While he was destroying the aggressors, the Safavid king signed an agreement with the Ottomans, which did not have any benefits for Iran at all. This is why Nader dismissed the Safavid king, and soon he founded the Afsharid dynasty.

Nadir Shah Afshar then took the army to India and conquered strategic regions of India that were under the control of the Mongol Empire and forced them to pay tax to him. Three years later, an unknown person tried to assassinate him, after this incident, he changed completely and his behavior towards the people became more and more outrageous day by day until several great tribesmen entered his tent and killed him during one of his battles.

After him, two of his nephews became king for a short time, after which his grandson Shah Rukh, who was blind, sat down on the throne, eventually, with the arrival of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar to the political arena of the country, the Zand and Afsharid dynasty was extinct.

One of the most important monuments that remained from the Afsharid dynasty is Kalat Nader that is located in Kalat Nader town in the current Khorasan Razavi Province.