From Nader Quli to Nader Shah
Great Empires usually disappear from the world in one of two fashions. The former, is a long, gradual decline in which a territory is lost here, a battle there, but the death is protracted over decades or even centuries. When the Empire finally disappears, it is surprising only that the polity still existed. Perhaps the most famous examples of this would be the fall of the Roman Empire, which in its height ruled over much of Europe, as well as West Asia and North Africa, but which ended its days clinging to a dying city.
The latter fashion is the dramatic fall. Seemingly at their height, these Empires are crushed in a few short years by determined conquerors, as the Assyrians were. Falling into this category would be the Empire of the Safavids, the Shi’i Turkmen who founded a great Iranian Empire. At the dawn of the 18th century, they appeared to be a significant force in the world, secure from incursion from outside as well as inside. However, within a few short years, the Empire faced an uprising among the Gilzāi Afghans at Kandahar, which eventually turned into a full-scale overthrow, the drunken Shah Hussain turned into a prisoner of the Afghan Mahmud Hotak, who now styled himself as the new Shah of Iran.
Mahmud soon succumbed to his own mental weaknesses, bringing the more dangerous Ashraf Hotak to the throne. Ashraf’s rule of Iran was challenged by the Ottomans, who wished to restore imprisoned Shah Hussain to the throne of Iran. As it happened, the Ottomans received only his head rather than his throne, as well as a stinging defeat at the hands of Ashraf Hotak. Here, a new dynasty may have begun but it proved to be but a false start. A scion of the Safavids, a drunkard named Tahmasp, had escaped to Qazvin and set up a remnant state there. He styled himself Tahmasp II, the legitimate Safavid Shah of Iran. With the Russians in control of the Caspian provinces, the Ottomans in Hamadan and the Afghans establishing their rule in Isfahan, the restoration of the Safavid Empire seemed to be a tall order.
He fought a campaign to restore to Iran the rule of the Safavid dynasty. With the replacement of the Fath-Ali Khan Qajar with the brilliant warrior and leader Nader Afshar, the Afghans were repeatedly defeated, and driven out of Iran. Having rid himself of the Afghans however, Tahmasp found himself with an overbearing servant in the form of Nader. Attempts to gain victory outside of the shadow of his servant led to disaster, and led to Tahmasp’s own downfall. In a drunken stupor, he was taken away without a fight by Nader’s men, and imprisoned, leaving the throne to his new-born son, Abbas. The Safavid Empire was now supposedly ruled by a young child, vulnerable to the ambitions of the man who had once been known as “Tahmasp Qoli”. The restoration of the Safavid Empire had proven to be yet another false start in Iran’s history, and nothing more than the prelude to the establishment of that of the Afsharids
[1].
As the Iranian army tore apart the Ottomans at the Battle of Yeghevārd, the war which Nader Quli had fought against the Ottomans for three years had seemingly come to its conclusion. Although unable to root the Ottomans from Baghdad, partly due to the lack of an effective siege train in the Iranian army, Nader had inflicted a number of stinging defeats on the Ottoman forces. With the great victory at Yeghevārd, which had pushed the Ottomans from the Eastern side of the Caucasus, Nader was able to secure something in the way of a peace treaty from the Ottomans. Iran’s borders were restored, and with a signing of a peace treaty with the Russians earlier in 1735, the two great powers who had occupied Iran’s territory in the wake of the fall of Isfahan had now been expulsed from Iranian territory. In just thirteen years, Iran had undergone a great revival, as the moribund Safavid State had been reconstituted largely due to the efforts of Nader Quli. However, Nader was not content to be the servant of the Safavids for long, and following the victory at Yeghevārd assembled Iran’s notables on the Moghan Plain.
Initially, Nader presented the assembly as one to find a suitable successor for him, either from one of the Safavid Princes or from another capable man. However, after the strangulation of a Shi'a cleric who had publically hoped for a Safavid restoration, the true purpose of the assembly was ascertained by most. Nader intended the assembly to officially hand him the power he already wielded, and confirm him as Shah of Iran. After several weeks, the great men of the country were clamouring for Nader to be crowned as Shah, and at the beginning of 1736 he was now officially the Shah of Iran. How much of the stated desire for him to rule formerly was coerced was unknown, though it is likely that the desire for the return of the Safavid dynasty was tempered by the knowledge that Nader, if somewhat harsh in his rule, was a strongman capable of securing Iran’s borders. As well as Nader’s rule being confirmed, the first large domestic shifts were announced at the Moghan Plain, including the religious reforms that would transform Iran into a Sunni Country once again.
Further internal changes began to take place once Nader returned to Isfahan later in 1736. For the time being at least, Isfahan remained the centre of Iran’s bureaucracy, and Iran’s de-facto capital. It was here that Nader began to undertake the first serious administrative reforms of his rule. The distinction that had existing in Safavid Iran between Crown Land and land governed by provincial governors was abolished, with the revenues of all lands flowing into central treasury. Provincial governors were to be supervised by a network of spies to reduce corruption and graft. The army was not to be rewarded with tax-farming arrangements or land, but all rewards were to be monetary in nature, and the soldiery was to be paid a regular salary. These measures could all be taken as “modernization” along European lines, but there was little evidence that Nader saw it as this way, and was more likely a way for him to secure financial power within Iran and to accentuate the importance of this financial power.
[1] – In OTL, Nader likely caught malaria in the Caucasus in 1735, following his great victory over the Ottomans at Yeghevārd. As in my previous TL, Nader avoids this and the subsequent mental and physical deterioration that his illness caused him.
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Early Afsharid Administrative Reforms
Nader Shah would produce something of a revolution in military affairs in the Middle East and beyond. However, his administrative reforms have traditionally been overshadowed by both his military successes as well as the “black legend” of his rapaciousness. Certainly, the initial part of his reign saw less administrative reform than would come later, with much of Nader’s domestic policy focused on two goals, namely the suppression of Shi'a religious practices and the collection of taxes to fund his military campaigns abroad. Although there is a significant body of evidence that suggests that Nader was aware of the ruinous long-term effects of heavy and sometimes arbitrary taxation on the populace, he was loath to change this policy at this point in his reign. Nader’s own attitude was somewhat dismissive of urban-dwellers in general, whom he personally saw as devious. His had reportedly earlier proclaimed that he saw himself as the scourge of God, though if true, he may well have stated this attitude not due to belief, but as justification for his high taxation. Although producing great amounts of resentment among the populace, this was in part balanced by his foreign policy success.
Another marked shift from the Safavid era was the confiscation of Waqf and its incorporation into the
Raqabāt-i Nādirī, a special land register. The landholdings of the Shi'a mosques and clergy had given them great amounts of power and wealth, contributing further to their growing influence in Iranian society. For Nader the mere
ability to challenge him would have been reason enough to curb the power of the clergy, but their active agitation in favour of the deposed Safavids gave Nader the imperative to seize their lands. While it is still unclear how many clergy-owned Waqf were transferred to the crown, it was enough to significantly reduce the financial power of the Shi'a clergy significantly. While this was not always a consistent feature of Nader’s rule (The shrine of Imam Reza at Mashhad for example was granted Waqf by Nader), there was a concerted trend in the reduction of the clergy’s landholding in favour of the states.
In the earlier part of Nader’s reign, administrative reforms were clearly focused on the increase of revenues to the crown and the deprivation of other interests who had been judged as detrimental in the late Safavid era. Much of the revenue raised in 1736/7 would go to enlarge the Iranian army that Nader would march East with, transforming both Iran’s geopolitical situation as well as the internal economic situation.
* * * * * *
Isfahan, 1736
Nader Shah’s tent was his usual court, where his policies were devised and where his rule mostly took place. However, to administer a great urbanised empire requires more in the tent, and although the court had been ripped from Isfahan several years earlier when the Safavids were moved to Qazvin, much of the administration of Iran was still based in the city. Hence, to reform the remains of the Safavid State, Nader had based himself in what remained of the great palace of the Safavids. Here, he worked on an edict which would rip the lands, and therefore the power, from the hands of the Shi'a clergy who had become so influential in the previous two centuries.
Muhammad Taqi looked at the edict in front of him. “They won’t like this. None one bit”
Far from being affected at his advisor’s concern, Nader seemed take a perverse enjoyment in situations which left others worried. “No, they will not. But if I doubled their lands, grovelled at their feet and promised them ten Circassian virgins each, they would still want my head on a plate”
“You are not wrong there” Muhammad Taqi smirked. “But that doesn’t mean that they will let this go quietly”
Nader rose from his couch. “And what armies would they be sending to coerced me to rescind my decision exactly? How many horsemen to the Clerics of Qom command? I wonder how many weeks it would take them to mobilize their phantom armies”
“It’s not about who they can command, it’s about who they can influence. There are many among the Afshars and Qajars who listen to them, and the Bakhtiaris…”
“The Bakhtiaris would look Qom themselves if they thought they could get away with it” Nader quickly retorted.
Muhammad Taqi paused, considering his next words carefully. “You are certain this is the right course? We are this much in need of money?”
Nader nodded. “We are. We cannot batter down the walls of Kandahar ourselves. If we are to pacify the East, we need all the money we can get for the time being. Iran is still at war, and it is high time that these idiots acted like it”
Muhammad Taqi joked “Or rather than squeezing the Marja, perhaps we could instead buy peace with the Afghans with the daughters of the Marja’”
Nader laughed “But indeed! That would be very poor trade!” After he had settled down, he looked Muhammad Taqi straight in the eyes. “But you think that this gambit could raise enough revenue to get our army to Kandahar, and then who knows!”
“Aye” he nodded. “I suppose that in the end, they will kick and fuss like the whining bitches that they are, but ultimately I don’t see them managing to raise any rebellions of significance. I shall see that it is done”
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Author's Notes - And we are finally past the POD, though there are no real changes yet. Really, this is to give something of a background to Nader's reign as things begin to veer away from OTL. By 1736 Nader had already distinguished himself by his avarice as much as his fair-mindedness, though this was to pale to what Iran would have to suffer a decade later as his madness took hold. Next update we shall accompany Nader into Afghanistan and beyond into Hindustan!
I also hope the map is at least passable! I'll try to insert more into the TL down the line to give a better visual impression of what's going on, and not to make the fact I learned how to use GIMP redundant. Hopefully they will improve in quality too!
