Nader Shah: the last conqueror of Persia

After the Afghans took Isfahan in 1722, Persia is gathered anew by the commander Nader of the Afshar tribe: he drives out the Afghans, takes back the provinces seized by the Turks and the Russians, and in 1736 at an assembly on the Mughan steppe proclaims himself shah, ending the two-century Safavid dynasty. In 1739 he defeats the Mughal army at Karnal and enters Delhi; after a massacre in the city he carries off the Mughal treasury, the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond, and leaves India weakened, to the benefit of the English. Nader tries to reconcile Shia and Sunni, mints coin and builds a fleet, but toward the end of his reign, suspicious and cruel, he blinds his own son. In 1747 he is killed by his own bodyguards; the realm falls apart, and until the Qajars Persia lives in civil strife. Nader himself resettled Jews from Qazvin to Mashhad; a century later their descendants will be forced into Islam.