Nadir Shah’s portrait from the collection of Smithsonian InstituteNadir Shah (Nadir Qoli Beg, also Tahmasp-Qoli Khan) (October 22, 1688 - June, 1747) ruled as Shah of Iran (1736–47) and was the founder of the short-lived Afsharid dynasty. Some historians have described him, because of his military genius, as the Napoleon of Persia or the Second Alexander. He created a great Iranian Empire with boundaries from the Indus River to the Caucasus Mountains (north) and India (east). Nadir Shah was probably the last great Asian military conqueror. But Nadir was also responsible for the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians, especially non-Muslims, during his military campaigns.

He was born in the Dastgerd region of Khorasan, a province of Iran. His father, a poor peasant, died while Nadir was still a child. Nadir and his mother were carried off as slaves by marauding Uzbeg tribesmen, but Nadir managed to escape. He joined a band of brigands while still a boy and eventually advanced to become their leader. Later he found refuge with the Turkic Afshar tribe, where, under the patronage of Afshar chieftains, he rose through the ranks to be a powerful military leader.

When in 1719 the Afghans invaded Persia, Nadir supported the Safavid ruler Tahmasp II -- in deference to whom he had named himself Tahmasp Qoli (Slave of Tahmasp)-- with a force of 5,000 soldiers against the Afghan usurper Mahmud Ghilzay. Nadir defeated the Afghans in the Battle of Damghan, 1729. He had driven out the Afghans, who were still occupying Persia, by 1730. In 1729 Tahmasp II was proclaimed shah in Isfahan. While Nadir was in Khorasan, putting down the revolt, Tahmasp II moved in person with an army against the Ottoman Empire. He was, however, heavily defeated. He made peace and Georgia and Armenia were lost. Nadir returned to Isfahan, exiled Tahmasp II to Khorasan, deposed him and placed his infant eight month old son Abbas III on the throne, declaring himself regent. In 1736, after Abbas III died, Nadir ascended to the throne himself, as Shah.

Nadir then turned west against the Ottomans, defeating them in several battles. In the siege of Baghdad in 1733 he was defeated behind the walls of the city. Nadir, however, came back with a larger army and the Ottomans were forced to made a peace treaty. Nadir was given the cities on the west of Aras River in addition to Karbala and Basra in southern Iraq. With this victory, he recovered all the land lost to the Ottomans before the Afghan invasion.

In 1738, Nadir Shah conquered Kandahar. In the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore. He continued on to India, crossing the river Indus before the end of year. He defeated the great Mughal army of Mohammad Shah at the Battle of Karnal, February 24 1739. After victory, Nadir captured Mohammad Shah and entered with him into Delhi where Nadir had Delhi plundered, in the process massacring 30,000 of its people.

Nadir returned home with vast treasures, including the Peacock Throne, which thereafter served as a symbol of Persian imperial might, and, among a trove of other fabulous jewels, the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Persian troops left Delhi at the beginning of May 1739, taking with them several thousand Indian girls (both Hindu and Muslim) and a large number of boys as slaves. Nadir's soldiers also took with them thousands of elephants, horses and camels, loaded with the booty they had collected. The plunder seized from India was so rich that Nadir stopped taxation in Iran for a period of three years, following his triumphant return.

In 1740 Nadir had Tahmasp II and his two infant sons put to death. After India, Nadir attacked the Uzbeks of Transoxania. Nadir also started to build a powerful Persian navy. He captured Bahrain from the Arabs. In 1743 he conquered Oman and its main capital, Muscat.

In 1741, after an assassination attempt on him failed, Nadir suspected his oldest son Reza Quli Mirza as being responsible for the conspiracy and had him blinded. Soon afterwards, Nadir started executing the nobles who had witnessed his son's blinding. In his last years, Nadir became increasingly paranoid, ordering the assassination of large numbers of supposed enemies.

In 1743 Nadir started another war against the Ottoman Empire. It ended with a peace treaty in 1746, by which treaty the Ottomans agreed to let Nadir occupy Najaf.

Tomb of Nadir Shah, a popular tourist attraction in MashhadNadir was assassinated in 1747, in Gulnabad, where he was resting with his army and family returning from India. It is believed that his assassination was planned by Ahmad Shah Durani who was his general at the time and later became the Afghan emperor. Nadir was surprised in his sleep by Salah Bey, captain of the guards, and cut with a sword.

Nadir had been married four times; he had 5 sons and 15 grandsons. He also had 33 women in his harem. During Nadir Shah's brief reign a 40,000-man army was created, and the boundaries of his empire extended to the greatest extent in Iran's history since the days of the Sassanids.

After his death, he was succeeded by his nephew Adil Shah ("righteous king") who was deposed within a year. During the struggle between Adil Shah, his brother Ibrahim Khan and Nadir's grandson Shah Rukh almost all provincial governors declared independence, established their own states, and the entire Empire of Nadir Shah fell into anarchy. Finally, Karim Khan founded the Zand dynasty and became ruler of Iran by 1760, while Ahmad Shah Durrani had already proclaimed independence in the east, marking the foundation of modern Afghanistan.

In 1768, Christian VII of Denmark commissioned Sir William Jones to translate a Persian language biography of Nadir Shah into French. It was published in 1770 as Histoire de Nadir Chah, and subsequently translated into English, becoming the vehicle by which Nadir Shah became known to the reading public in the West.