‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎286v] (579/722)

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During tlie eight years which followed, the Afghans exercised a brief but
bloody rule. Indeed, the horrors of Afghan dominion in Persia are inde
scribable. Wholesale massacre, pillage, and outrage were practised by a
brutal soldiery, under the direct encouragement of their no less savage
masters.
Here it should be remarked that when Shah Husain surrendered his
throne to the Afghans, his eldest son, Shah Tahmasp, put forth a feeble claim
to the kingdom. For a long time, however, he was wholly unable to make
head against the Afghans. Subsequently two individuals appeared in
support of the young prince, who were destined to leave a lasting name in
Persian annals. The first was Fateh All Khan, a chief of the Kajar tribe
in the region to the south of the Caspian, who is famous as the ancestor of
the Kajar dynasty, which at this day occupies the throne of Persia. The
second personage was a petty robber of Khurasan, afterwards known as
Nadir Shah. These two men engaged in active rivalry, which ter
minated in the murder of the chief of the Kajars by the unscrupulous Nadir.
The career of the new conqueror is a matter of general history. It will
suffice to state here that Nadir Shah drove the Afghans out of Persia, and
endeavoured to associate himself with the Safavian dynasty by marrying his
eldest son to the daughter of Shah Husain, who was also sister of Tahmasp.
After this he cautiously dethroned Tahmasp, and assumed the sovereignty.
Ultimately he extended his empire over all the territories which had been
conquered by Shah Abbas. He became master of the whole country from
the Caspian to the Oxus and Indus; and connected himself by matrimonial
alliances with the states beyond those boundaries. The Mughal Emperor of
Delhi gave his daughter in marriage to a son of Nadir Shah, with all the
provinces westward of the Indus as her dowry. The Amir of Bukhara,
beyond the Oxus, gave his daughter in marriage to a nephew of Nadir Shah,
and paid homage to the Persian ruler.
The dynasty of Nadir Shah was, if possible, more brief and unsubstantial
than that of any of the nomad conquerors who had gone before him,
excepting perhaps that of the Afghans. It was not the result of a religious
movement, like that which placed Shah Ismail upon the throne more than
two centuries previously. Neither was it a national movement in which a
hero had risen from the people and successfully rallied them against a foreign
invader. On the contrary, Nadir Shah was an enemy to the Shiah religion
and an unscrupulous usurper. He espoused the religion of the Sunnis with
the view of maintaining his dominion over the outlying provinces of
Turkistan and Afghanistan, and without regard to the deeply-rooted preju
dices of his Persian subjects in favour of the Shiah doctrines. Moreover, he
seems in a great measure to have abandoned the ancient capital of Isfahan,
and to have made Mashhad his capital, with the view apparently of main
taining a strong reign over his newly-conquered provinces to the eastward.
In 1747 Nadir Shah was assassinated at Mashhad ; and this event was
followed by massacres and anarchy, and for many years the country was
deluged with blood by a succession of rival chieftains, who were actuated by
little more than a vulgar lust for plunder and dominion.
It will be wholly unnecessary to follow in detail the progress of affairs in
Persia during this period of revolutionary anarchy. Nadir Shah had been
murdered at Mashhad, the capital of Khurasan; and Khurasan thus became
the chief theatre of the wars and intrigues as regards the succession. The
first series of massacres was carried out by a nephew of the deceased ruler,