91 Facts About Nader Shah

Nader Shah fought numerous campaigns throughout the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia, such as the battles of Herat, Mihmandust, Murche-Khort, Kirkuk, Yeghevard, Khyber Pass, Karnal, and Kars.

Nader Shah became so powerful that he decided to depose the last members of the Safavid dynasty, which had ruled Iran for over 200 years, and become Shah himself in 1736.

Nader Shah has been described as "the last great Asiatic military conqueror".

Nader Shah was born in the fortress of Dastgerd in the northern valleys of Khorasan, a province in the northeast of the Iranian Empire.

At the age of 13, his father died and Nader Shah had to find a way to support himself and his mother.

Nader Shah had no source of income other than the sticks he gathered for firewood, which he transported to the market.

Legend has it that in 1704, when he was about 17, a band of marauding Uzbeks invaded the province of Khorasan, where Nader Shah lived with his mother.

Nader Shah rose the ranks and became the governor's right-hand man.

Nader Shah grew up during the final years of the Safavid dynasty which had ruled Iran since 1502.

Tahmasp and the Qajar leader Fath Ali Khan contacted Nader Shah and asked him to join their cause and drive the Ghilzai Afghans out of Khorasan.

Nader Shah agreed and thus became a figure of national importance.

When Nader discovered that Fath Ali Khan was in treacherous correspondence with Malek Mahmud and revealed this to the shah, Tahmasp executed him and made Nader the chief of his army instead.

Nader Shah subsequently took on the title Tahmasp Qoli.

The citizens' rejoicing was cut short when Nader Shah plundered them to pay his army.

Nader Shah pursued and defeated Ashraf, who was murdered by his own followers.

In 1738 Nader Shah besieged and destroyed the last Hotaki seat of power at Kandahar.

Nader Shah built a new city near Kandahar, which he named "Naderabad".

Nader Shah ended up losing all of Nader's recent gains to the Ottomans, and signed a treaty ceding Georgia and Armenia in exchange for Tabriz.

Nader Shah, furious, saw that the moment had come to ease Tahmasp from power.

Nader Shah denounced the treaty, seeking popular support for a war against the Ottomans.

In Isfahan, Nader Shah got Tahmasp drunk then showed him to the courtiers asking if a man in such a state was fit to rule.

Nader Shah decided he needed to regain the initiative as soon as possible to save his position because revolts were already breaking out in Iran.

Nader Shah faced Topal again with a larger force and defeated and killed him.

Nader Shah then besieged Baghdad, as well as Ganja in the northern provinces, earning a Russian alliance against the Ottomans.

Nader Shah scored a great victory over a superior Ottoman force at Baghavard and by the summer of 1735, Iranian Armenia and Georgia were his again.

The small group of close intimates, Nader Shah's friends, included Tahmasp Khan Jalayer and Hasan-Ali Beg Bestami.

When Nader Shah asked him why he remained silent, Hasan-Ali replied that the best thing for Nader Shah to do would be assembling all leading men of the state, in order to receive their agreement in "a signed and sealed document of consent".

Nader Shah approved with the proposal, and the writers of the chancellery, which included the court historian Mirza Mehdi Khan Astarabadi, were instructed with sending out orders to the military, clergy and nobility of the nation to summon at the plains.

Nader Shah believed that Safavid Shia Islam had intensified the conflict with the Sunni Ottoman Empire.

Nader Shah's army was a mix of Shia and Sunni Muslims and included his own Qizilbash as well as Uzbeks, Afghans, Christian Georgians, and Armenians, and others.

Nader Shah wanted Iran to adopt a form of religion that would be more acceptable to Sunni Muslims and suggested that Iran adopt a form of Shia Islam he called "Ja'fari", in honour of the sixth Shia imam Ja'far al-Sadiq.

Nader Shah banned certain Shia practices which were particularly offensive to Sunni Muslims, such as the cursing of the first three caliphs of Islam.

Personally, Nader Shah is said to have been indifferent towards religion and the French Jesuit who served as his personal physician reported that it was difficult to know which religion he followed and that many who knew him best said that he had none.

Nader Shah hoped that "Ja'farism" would be accepted as a fifth school of Sunni Islam and that the Ottomans would allow its adherents to go on the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, which was within their territory.

Nader Shah was interested in gaining rights for Iranians to go on the hajj in part because of revenues from the pilgrimage trade.

Nader Shah had a Shia mullah of Iran strangled after he was heard expressing support for the Safavids.

Nader Shah diverted money going to Shia mullahs and redirected it to his army instead.

In 1738, Nader Shah conquered Kandahar, the last outpost of the Hotaki dynasty.

Nader Shah asked for the Afghan rebels to be handed over, but the Mughal emperor refused.

Nader Shah, furious, reacted by ordering his soldiers to sack the city.

Still the plunder seized from India was so much that Nader Shah stopped taxation in Iran for a period of three years following his return.

Many historians believe that Nader Shah attacked the Mughal Empire to, perhaps, give his country some breathing space after previous turmoils.

Nader Shah secured one of the Mughal emperor's daughters, Jahan Afruz Banu Begum, as a bride for his youngest son.

Nader Shah had left his son Reza Qoli Mirza to rule Iran in his absence.

Nader Shah was not impressed with his son's waywardness and reprimanded him, but he took him on his expedition to conquer territory in Transoxiana.

Nader Shah tried to secure the ruler of Bukhara as his vassal, imitating previous great conquerors of Mongol-Timurid descent.

Nader Shah dispatched numerous artisans to Merv in a move to prepare for an improbable conquest of distant Kashgaria.

Such a campaign did not materialize, but Nader Shah frequently sent funds and engineers to Merv trying to restore its prosperity and rebuild its ill-fated dam.

Nader Shah now decided to punish Dagestan for the death of his brother Ebrahim Qoli on a campaign a few years earlier.

In 1741, while Nader Shah was passing through the forest of Mazanderan on his way to fight the Dagestanis, an assassin took a shot at him but Nader Shah was only lightly wounded.

Nader Shah began to suspect his son was behind the attempt and confined him to Tehran.

Reza Qoli angrily protested his innocence, but Nader Shah had him blinded as punishment, and ordered his eyes to be brought to him on a platter.

Nader Shah recaptured the island of Bahrain from the Arabs.

In 1743, Nader Shah started another war against the Ottoman Empire.

Nader Shah minted silver coins, called Naderi, that were equal to the Mughal rupee.

Nader Shah discontinued the policy of paying soldiers based on land tenure.

Nader Shah always paid his troops on time, no matter what.

Nader Shah's concepts regarding the Ja'farism and common Turkmen descent were directed primarily at the Ottomans and Mughals.

Nader Shah proposed a peace treaty with the Ottomans, in it, he proclaimed the Persians had reverted to the Sunni sect of Islam.

Nader Shah probably did this for political reasons in order to increase his legitimacy within the Muslim world; he would have never been accepted if he remained a Shia Muslim.

Whenever Nader Shah laid siege to a city, he would construct a city of his own outside the walls.

Nader Shah's encampment was filled with markets, mosques, bathhouses, coffeehouses, and stables.

Nader Shah did this to show the besieged his army would be there for the long haul, to prevent diseases from spreading within his troops' ranks, and to occupy his troops' time.

Nader Shah became increasingly cruel as a result of his illness and his desire to extort more and more tax money to pay for his military campaigns.

New revolts broke out and Nader Shah crushed them ruthlessly, building towers from his victims' skulls in imitation of his hero Timur.

In 1747, Nader Shah set off for Khorasan, where he intended to punish Kurdish rebels.

Nader Shah was surprised in his sleep by around fifteen conspirators, and stabbed to death.

Nader Shah was able to kill two of the assassins before he died.

Nader Shah was well known to the European public of the time.

In 1768, Christian VII of Denmark commissioned Sir William Jones to translate a Persian language biography of Nader Shah written by his Minister Mirza Mehdi Khan Astarabadi into French.

The military success of Nader was nearly unprecedented for Muslim Shahs.

Nader Shah consciously avoided the using the colour green, as green was associated with Shia Islam and the Safavid dynasty.

The strong character of Nader Shah is indicated by the fact that having achieved much fame and glory, he did not allow his pleasers to find great ancestors in the darkness of his origin.

Nader Shah never boasted of a proud genealogy; on the contrary, he often spoke of his simple origin.

Nader Shah once had a conversation with a holy man about paradise.

Nader Shah's dyed beard made a sharp contrast with his completely gray hair; his natural physique was strong, tall, and his waist was proportional to his growth; his expression was gloomy, with an oblong face, an aquiline nose and a beautiful mouth, but with his lower lip protruding forward.

Nader Shah had small penetrating eyes with a sharp and piercing gaze; his voice was rude and loud, although he knew how to soften it on occasion, as required by personal interest.

Nader Shah did not neglect any of the measures dictated by foresight.

Nader Shah was adored, feared and cursed at the same time.

Nader Shah is taller than 6 feet, well-built, very physically strong.

Nader Shah has such an unusually loud voice that he can give orders to his people at a distance of about 100 yards.

Nader Shah is extremely generous, especially to his warriors, and generously rewards all who have distinguished themselves in his service.

Nader Shah never forgives the guilty, no matter what rank he is.

Nader Shah has such a strong physique that he often sleeps on a frosty night on bare ground in the open air, wrapping himself only in his cloak and putting a saddle under his head as a pillow.

Nader Shah was the horror of the Ottoman Empire, the conqueror of India, the ruler of Persia and all of Asia.

Nader Shah's neighbors respected him, his enemies were afraid of him, and he lacked only the love of his subjects.

Joseph Stalin used to read about Nader Shah and admired him, calling him, along with Ivan the Terrible, a teacher.

In Europe, Nader Shah was compared to Alexander the Great.

Nader Shah always preferred plain garments and disdained courtly sophistication and lavish lifestyles, particularly that of the Safavids.

Nader Shah ate simple foods and restrained himself from being tied to his harem and liquor, unlike Sultan Husayn and Tahmasp II.

Nader Shah did not want historians to detail his military victories too closely because he feared others would copy his brilliant techniques on the battlefield.