Nadir Shah

“ The boys were all laughing and clapping their hands, and Becharam was angrily expostulating with them. When Nadir Shah attacked Delhi, Mahomed Shah was absorbed in listening to music and singing; and even when Nadir Shah appeared suddenly before him in the full panoply of war, Mahomed Shah said not a word, and for a time ceased not drinking in with his ears the sweet nectar of song; at last, and still not speaking a word, he left his throne. Not thus did Beni Babu behave upon the arrival of Becharam Babu ”

“ Shah Sūjah’s ancestors plundered it from the treasure of Nadir Shah after he was assassinated, and Nadir Shah extorted it from the great Mogul after the massacre at Delhi.
“Those of the Seik court who were admitted to the durbār were most superbly dressed, some in flowing yellow or bright red silk dresses, their kummerbunds always a Cashmere shawl of very great value; some in high-polished cuirasses, and others in choice and glittering armour; and all appeared decked in jewels of immense value. ”

“ To understand the political state of Afghanistan, into which the army marched for the purpose of restoring Shah Shooja to its throne, it will be necessary to go back to the early part of the last century, when Nadir Shah had raised himself to the throne of Persia. His name having become formidable as a conqueror, he turned his thoughts to the conquest of India, and, assuming sufficient pretexts for breaking the relations of amity which he professed for the monarch of that country, he determined to invade it, and for that purpose began his march in 1738. ”

“ But further honours were in store for the obsequious Abū-l-Fayz. Nādir deigned to accept his lovely daughter as a wife, bestowing her sister, at the same time, on his nephew. He created Mohammad Rahīm Bi, to whose influence he owed his reception, Khān, and gave him command of 6000 chosen troops levied in Turkestān. Having thus brought Bokhārā to heel, Nādir Shāh turned his attention to Khiva. He sent an envoy to Ilbars Khān, demanding his instant submission. The Khivan was a man of ungovernable temper, and his reply was to put to death those who held out to him the olive branch. ”

“ The large paintings are of considerable interest apart from their historical value. In the centre, facing the entrance door, we detect Nadir Shah, the Napoleon of Persia, the leader of 80,000 men through Khorassan, Sistan, Kandahar and Cabul. He is said to have crossed from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass to Peshawar, and from there to Delhi, where his presence led to a scene of loot and carnage. But to him was certainly due the extension of the Persian boundary to the Indus towards the East and to the Oxus on the North. ”

“ It was during this contest that the famous Nadir Shah advanced from Persia to the invasion of Hindustan; and while at Kandahar he despatched several detachments into Baluchistan and established his authority in that province. Abdulla Khan, however, was continued in the government of the country by Nadir's orders; but he was soon after killed in a battle with the forces of the nawabs of Sind. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Haji Mahommed Khan, who abandoned himself to the most tyrannical and licentious way of life and alienated his subjects by oppressive taxation. ”

“ It was the fortune of Persia to be delivered from the Afghan yoke at a time when, under a feeble and corrupt ruler, the national life had been almost crushed out by foreign tyranny. This deliverance was wrought by a man who raised himself from the lowest condition to the head of the kingdom which he restored. Besides this achievement for Persia, Nadir Shah performed deeds of conquest which placed his name among those who have won lasting celebrity by the subjugation of empires. ”

“ He was succeeded by Mahommed Shah, in whose reign the Mahratta forces first made their appearance before the gates of Delhi, in 1736. Three years later the Persian monarch, Nadir Shah, after defeating the Mogul army at Karnal, entered Delhi in triumph. While engaged in levying a heavy contribution, the Persian troops were attacked by the populace, and many of them were killed. ”

“ About 1740 Nadir Shah granted the town and district with the fort of Shamil and the town of Mināb, together with the islands of Kishm, Hormuz (Ormus) and Lārak, to the Arab tribe of the Beni Ma‛īni in return for a payment of a yearly rent or tribute. About 40 years later Sultan bin Ahmad, the ruler of Muscat, having been appealed to for aid by the Arab inhabitants of the place against Persian misrule, occupied the town, and obtained a firman from the Persian government confirming him in his possession on the condition of his paying a yearly rent of a few thousand tomans. ”

“ At the city we had become intimate with one of the hill chiefs, who urged us to take the Khyber route; but no one trusts a Khyberee, and it was not deemed prudent. Nadir Shah paid a sum of money to secure his passage through the defile in that country, which is about eighteen miles in length, and very strong. I should have liked much to see these people in their native state; but our acquaintance, though a chief, was not to be depended on. He was a tall, bony, gaunt-looking man, like the rest of his tribe, much addicted to spirits ”

“ This selfishness, destructive of public, as of private, virtue, became universal in Hindustan after the invasion of Nadir Shah; nor have the people become more virtuous since, and consequently are neither happy nor more independent."
Ahmad Khan (known as "the Abdali") , whom we are now to recognise as Ahmad Shah, the Daurani emperor, returned to Hindustan (as stated in the last chapter) late in the summer, and marched to Dehli, when he heard of the murder of Alamgir II. The execrable Shahabuddin (or Ghazi-ud-din the younger) fled at his approach, taking refuge with the Jats. ”

“ The central authority never recovered from the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739, who carried off plunder variously estimated at from 8 to 30 millions sterling. The Mahrattas closed round Delhi from the south, and the Afghans from the west. The victory of Panipat, won by Ahmad Shah Durani over the united Mahratta confederacy in 1761, gave the Mahommedans one more chance of rule. But Ahmad Shah had no ambition to found a dynasty of his own, nor were the British in Bengal yet ready for territorial conquest. ”

“ Nadir Shah, soon after his elevation to the throne, marched to Ispahan; but the short time he spent in that capital was solely devoted to military preparations; he had resolved on the entire extinction of the Afghans as a separate power, and that could not be effected without the reduction of the city and province of Kandahar, which was then in possession of a prince called Hasan Khan, the brother of the celebrated Mahmud; but before he proceeded upon this expedition he adopted every measure that could secure the internal tranquillity of Persia during his absence. ”

“ Their wars are religious wars, of which politics are never the apparent motive.
When Nadir Shah had contrived that the crown should be offered to him, he accepted it only on condition that the Shiites should in future abstain from anathematizing the first three caliphs, and holding festivals in honour of Ali and Hossein. It must have been a singular spectacle, though not unparalleled in history, to see that ferocious conqueror assembling the doctors, entering into theological discussions, and arguing like a casuist. ”

“ Upon the retreat of the conqueror the diamond was carried off with other booty. The Koh-i-nûr therefore went from Delhi into Persia, and eventually it descended to Shah Rokh, the hapless son of the mighty Nadir Shah. But he who would wear the great diamond in peace must himself be strong, and Shah Rokh was [Pg 97] weak. The wretched prince was unable to hold the throne, usurped by his father, against the usurpations of his own lieutenants. ”

“ Had this gem been added to the Mogul treasury at Delhi in 1304, from the conquest of Malwa by Ala-ud-deen, it probably would have been known to Timour. The last Tatar invasion, in 1736, under Nadir Shah, found the gem set in the turban of the Great Mogul, and it was carried away to Khorasan by the victorious host, together with all the fabulous wealth which had been garnered up during nearly four centuries of prosperity. From Nadir it was wrested by assassination, and passed from ruler to ruler, with strange vicissitudes, until the Sikh power succumbed to the arms of England ”

“ The Cadjars were then commanded by Feth Ali Khan, great-grandfather of the present monarch. He obtained, in 1723, the government of Mazanderan, and was ordered to drive the Afghans from Teheran; but being defeated by them, he retired to Asterabad. After the expulsion of the Afghans by Nadir Shah, Mazanderan was in a state of rebellion. Ibrahim, Nadir's brother, reduced it, took Feth Ali Khan, and put him to death. He is considered as the first chieftain who rendered his tribe renowned, and bore the title of prince. ”

“ A century passed away. Nadir Shah was forgotten, and Russia was again menacing Persia and dabbling in the Caspian. In 1837 Persia was besieging Herat under the pretence that it had formed part of the empire of Nadir Shah; but Russia was in the background putting forth Persian claims as a cat's-paw for seizing Herat. Great Britain, however, was resolved that neither Persia nor Russia should take Herat from the Afghans, to whom it had properly belonged ever since the death of Nadir Shah. In October, 1838, Lord Auckland declared war to compel Persia to retire from Herat. ”

“ We Musalmans have our horns in the thicket; shall not Hindus help to disentangle them? When the Feringhis are smitten and sent to perdition, then will be the time for us true believers to deal fitly with the Hindu dogs. Will it not be then as it was in the days of the great Shah Nadir? Once more the Afghans, men of your race and faithful sons of the Prophet, will pour into the plains and set up a new and glorious kingdom. Who reigns now in Delhi? Bahadur Shah, toothless, feeble-kneed, a puppet in the hands of the Feringhis, doing nought from sunrise to sunset but invent foolish verses. ”

“ While the empire was ... rent in pieces by internal disturbances, a more tremendous enemy even than the Mahrattas presented himself from without. A revolution had taken place in Persia, which seated a soldier of fortune upon the throne; and the famous Nadir Shah, after capturing Candahar, found it necessary, according to the fashion of conquerors, to seize upon the Mogul territories, Ghizni and Cabul, and when at the latter city to continue his march into Hindostan. In 1739, he arrived at Kurnaul, within 70 miles of Delhi, and defeated the emperor in a general engagement. ”

“ But the mighty Shah Nadir was old and had no longer any desire for war and conquest. He had won many battles; many hostile cities had perished in ashes before his wrath; and many, many a knight had been pierced through by his sword in the days when his arm was young and none could withstand him.
But now he was old and weary, and liked best to recline on the luxurious purple divans of his gorgeous palace. Occasionally, however, when golden-edged clouds shielded the burning Persian sun, and a delightful breeze blew down from Mt. ”

“ The KOH-I-NUR was found at Kollur on the river Krishna, probably in A.D. 1656. Mir Jumla farmed the mines at that time, and presented it uncut to the emperor, Shah Jahan. It is said to have weighed 756 English carats (Ball, ii. 444) . It was entrusted to a Venetian named Hortensio Borgio, and was so damaged and wasted in his hands that, when seen by Tavernier in Aurangzib's treasury in 1665, it weighed not more than 268 1/2 English carats. In 1739 Nadir Shah sacked Delhi and carried the stone away with him to Persia, conferring on it its present immortal name the "Mountain of Light." ”

“ Shah Nadir usurped the crown of Persia in 1736, and freed Kartli and Kakheti from the Turkish yoke. A little before his accession, in 1732, Russia had renounced in favour of Persia all right to the land between the Terek and the Kura. Nadir ingratiated himself with the Georgian nobility, and always gave them the post of honour in the victorious campaigns for which his reign is famous. Almost all the great warriors of the land accompanied him on his Indian march of conquest, and his especial favourite was Irakli, the son of Teimuraz, King of Kartli and Kakheti. ”

“ At the earnest intercession of the emperor, Nadir ordered the butchery to be stopped. Where the estimates of human beings murdered varies from 8000 to 150,000, it is clear that no trustworthy data are obtainable; but it is unquestionable that Delhi suffered immensely, both in its population and its wealth. The ruthless despoiler not only refrained from claiming the crown of Hindostan, but he did not make any conquests whatever: he came simply as a Shah of Persia on an errand of vengeance; he remained two months at Delhi ”

“ Nadír resettled seven thousand families of the tribe in Turbat. On his death, Sháh Ahmad annexed the country to Afghanistan, and secured the good-will of their chief, Ishák Khán, by a liberal policy of protection and favour. On the decline of the Durrani dynasty, and the extension eastwards of the Cajar rule, this district, and the adjoining principality of Mashhad, wrested from the unfortunate Sháh Rokh Mirzá, were restored to Persia. ”

“ Aga Mahomed had in his early years fallen into the hands of Adel Shah, the nephew and successor of Nadir, against whom the Kajar chief maintained himself in revolt. Adel Shah had the cruelty to order that the boy should be reduced to the condition of an eunuch, and this atrocity turned all the victim's thoughts to the pursuit of his ambitious views. He accompanied his father, while still a boy, upon journeys and in various campaigns, and was left by him in charge of the important government of Azerbaeejan. ”