Sykes' History of Persia Vol 2 (pdf) - Heritage Institute

NADIR SHAH.
CHAPTER LXX
THE RISE OF NADIR KULI TO THE THRONE OF PERSIA
We find a man, whose birth and beginning were so obscure as with
difficulty
to be traced out conducting to an issue, with resolution and steadiness,
opportunities he had worked out for himself ; planning with deliberation and
foresight, the fabrick of his future fortune and
; carrying his designs into
execution, with an unwearied application, till, like other mighty conquerors
before him, he became terrible to Asia and the undoubted arbiter of the East.
HANWAY, on Nadir Shah.
The Origin and Birthplace of Nadir Kuli. Nadir
Shah, the last great Asiatic conqueror, was born and bred
in Khorasan, which he ever regarded as his home. I
have visited the site of his birth and also Kalat-i-Nadiri
and other districts
specially connected with the great
Afshar, some of whose descendants I also know. Consequently
am I able to give stories and legends of the
hero, whose name still looms very large in Khorasan, as
told me by various Persian friends. 1
Nadir Kuli, or The Slave of the Wonderful," the
adjective being one of the many epithets of the Deity,
was the son of Imam Kuli, a humble member of the
Kirklu tribe which, owing to its weakness, united with
the more powerful Afshar tribe. The home of Imam
1
The authorities for this period include the Historical Account of British Trade over
the Caspian, containing a Life of Nadir Shah by J. Hanway ;
the Life of Nadir Shah and
a historical novel, The Kiz'ilbash, by J.
B. Frascr a 5 paper in the R.A.S. (Jan. 1908),
and a historical novel, Nadir Shah, by Sir Mortimer Durand. In Historiens Armeniens,
by M. Brosset, there is a valuable contemporary account of Nadir Shah by Abraham of
Crete, and in vol. v. of Histoire de la Georgie, by the same author, there is a letter written
by Heraclius II. to his sister, in which the Indian is
campaign described. Of Oriental
writers the Jahangusha-i-Nadiri, by Mehdi Khan, is most valuable, and so in a lesser
degree are the Memoirs of Abdulkurretm. Finally, I have been given note* by Said Ali
Khan Chapashlu of Darragaz, whose ancestor was a favourite general of Nadir Shah's.
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