afghanistanand by the late nineteenth century only a few pockets of this once great
tribe remained in the wilayat.
Following the pacification of Balkh, Nadir Shah marched down the
Amu Darya and occupied the key Bukharan-held fort of Kerki, while
Reza Quli took Chaharjui. Fearing the Persian army was about to march
on Bukhara, ‘Abu’l-Faiz, the Tuqay-Timurid Khan of Bukhara, came in
person to Nadir Shah’s camp and abjectly submitted. As a result Nadir Shah
acquired yet more Uzbek levies for his army, commanded by Ataliq Rahim
Bi, who would later found the Manghit dynasty. Khiva, too, fell. Ilbars, its
Yomut Turkman ruler, was executed and thousands of Persian slaves freed,
for Khiva was one of the great emporiums of the Central Asian slave trade.
Nadir Shah’s conquest of Delhi also marked the rise of prominence
of Ahmad Shah, who was appointed as one of the officials that drew up
an inventory of the huge booty. Then in 1744, on the recommendation of
Hajji Jamal Khan ‘Alizai, Ahmad Shah was appointed as kurchi bashi, a
kind of aide-de-camp, on Nadir Shah’s personal staff. The following year,
after Ahmad Shah showed considerable courage during another campaign
against the Ottomans, Nadir Shah ordered him to raise a regiment of
‘Abdalis to form part of the royal guard. Ahmad Shah assembled a force
of around 3,000 ‘Abdalis that he called ghazis, a term used for warriors in
a jihad who take a vow on the Qur’an to fight to the death. Ahmad Shah
hand-picked youths of his own age and bound them to himself with an
oath of loyalty. Towards the end of Nadir Shah’s reign, Ahmad Shah’s ghazis
became one of his most trusted corps and were used to offset the power
of Qizilbash, Afshar and Qajar commanders who the king suspected were
plotting to rebel or even assassinate him.
Nadir Shah’s final years and assassinationFollowing his campaigns in Balkh and Bukhara, Nadir Shah returned to
Mashhad, where the bloodshed continued as his physical and mental health
gradually deteriorated. According to Nadir Shah’s personal physician, the
Jesuit priest Père Louis Bazin, by 1746, the year before Nadir Shah’s death,
the king was unable to keep food down, suffered from chronic constipation,
obstruction of the liver and dryness of the mouth. Despite being only in
his forties, Nadir Shah’s hair had turned white and he looked like an old
man. 11 His relentless campaigning, the stress of leadership, his addiction
to drink and his paranoia had all taken their toll.
Once back in Mashhad, Nadir Shah sent officials all over Persia to
demand more and more cash to pay for his vast army, while his suspicion