nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47of everyone around him led to bloody repression. His son and heir, Reza
Quli Mirza, was reported to have called his father an oppressor and accused
him of draining Persia dry. Then a satirical verse appeared on Nadir’s newly
commissioned tomb, commenting that, while the king was everywhere in
the world, his proper place – that is, his grave – remained empty. When on
his way to Mazandaran, an assassin’s bullet hit Nadir Shah on the thumb,
he went to extraordinary lengths to track down the culprit. When he was
finally captured the assassin was promised his life on condition he revealed
who had put him up to the plot. The assassin accused Reza Quli Mirza
and some of Nadir Shah’s most senior military officials of being behind
the conspiracy. Reza Quli vehemently denied he had any part in the plot,
but despite this Nadir Shah had his son blinded and the other alleged
conspirators put to death. When the surgeon presented Nadir Shah with
his son’s eyes, he broke down and wept, but despite this show of grief, the
repressions continued unabated.
In 1744 Taqi Beg Khan, one of the king’s closest confidants and
commander of Fars, rebelled and Nadir Shah marched on Shiraz to besiege
the city, laying waste to the country as he went. When Shiraz fell, Nadir
Shah’s troops pillaged the city and thousands of its inhabitants were killed,
their corpses decapitated and the heads piled into a pyramid of skulls. Taqi
Beg Khan was captured but, since Nadir Shah had once vowed never to
put him to death, he was castrated instead and one of his eyes plucked out.
Taqi Beg then had to watch with his one good eye as members of his family
were executed and his favourite wife gang-raped by Nadir’s soldiers. He was
then dispatched to be governor of Sind, the most remote outpost of Nadir
Shah’s empire. Nadir’s officials also extorted as much cash as possible from
the Shirazis, cutting off hands, feet and noses or strangling and beating
to death anyone suspected of concealing their wealth. The result was an
exodus of Shiraz’s mercantile community to Ottoman Turkey, Calcutta,
Bombay and Madras.
Having put down the revolt with great brutality, Nadir Shah returned
to Mashhad. All along his route government officials were interrogated
and anyone suspected of embezzling state funds was mutilated, tortured
or killed. In Mashhad even more officials were executed and a levy of half a
million tomans placed on its inhabitants. During his visit to Isfahan at the
end of 1746, Nadir Shah’s officials pillaged this city too and eight merchants
- Indians, Jews and Armenians – who were accused of purchasing a stolen
carpet were burnt alive. Nadir Shah then issued list after list of people to
be executed and demanded payment of vast sums from senior officials and
provincial governors. When Nadir Shah ordered the governors of Kirman