Persian Civil War of 1725-36

Afghan supremacy is brief.

Tahmasp Quli, a chief of the Afshar tribe, soon expels the Afghans in the name of a surviving member of the Safavi family.

He then assumes power in 1736 in his own name as Nader Shah.

He goes on to drive the Ottomans from Georgia and Armenia and the Russians from the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea and restores Iranian sover eignty over Afghanistan.

He also takes his army on several campaigns into India, sacking Delhi in 1739 and bringing back fabulous treasures.

Nader Shah achieves political unity but his military campaigns and extortionate taxation prove a terrible drain on a country already ravaged and depopulated by war and disorder, and in 1747 he is murdered by chiefs of his own Afshar tribe.

A period of anarchy marked by a struggle for supremacy among Afshar, Qajar, Afghan, and Zand tribal chieftains folows Nader Shah's death.

The city of Tabriz is in 1724–1725 again occupied by the Ottomans, who massacre two hundred thousand of its inhabitants.

The city will be later retaken by Persian forces.

The Ottoman Empire, backed by Britain, disputes Russia’s Caspian Sea acquisitions.

The confrontation threatens to blow up into a direct Russo-Turkish war, but this is avoided by the Treaty of Constantinople of 1724, by which the Ottomans receive western Persia (occupying Tabriz, ...

...Kermanshah, and ...

...Hamadan in 1724-25), and ...

...the Russians, northern Persia (holding three Caspian regions and captured territories.)

This is perhaps the first such imposition of precise boundaries by European powers on an Islamic state.

Tahmasp II, as the representative of the ousted Safavid dynasty, controls the provinces of Mazandaran and ...

...Gilan.

Mahmud’s failure to impose his rule across Persia has made him depressed and suspicious.

He is also concerned about the loyalty of his own men, since many Afghans prefer his cousin Ashraf Khan.

Bbelieving a rumor that one of Sultan Husayn's sons, Safi Mirza, had escaped, Mahmud in February 1725 orders the execution of all the other Safavid princes who are in his hands, with the exception of Sultan Husayn himself.

Sultan Husayn tries to stop the massacre and is wounded, but his action leads to Mahmud sparing the lives of two of his young children.

Mahmud has begun to succumb to insanity as well as physical deterioration.

A group of Afghan officers frees Ashraf Khan from the prison where he had been confined by Mahmud and on April 22, 1725, launch a palace revolution that places Ashraf on the throne.

Mahmud dies three days later, either from his illness—at it is claimed at the time—or murder by suffocation.