Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant

One account says that the little boy began to cry during the crowning ceremony. Nader asked those nearby whether they knew why he was crying. Prudently, they said Nader surely knew best himself. Nader said Abbas was crying because he wanted to rule over the Afghans of Kandahar and the Ottoman Sultan, and declared to general acclaim that to gratify

Herat was symbolically as well as strategically important. It was one of the great cities of Asia, and was ringed with strong fortifications from the time of Shahrokh, Timur’s son, who had made it the capital of his empire.

When asked for a decision, Shah Soltan Hosein would tend to agree with whoever approached him last – usually with the words Yakhshi dir (‘It is good’ in the Turkic court language).

He made the man who had forcibly married her sign and seal a divorce decree before witnesses, and got Nader’s secretaries to write a raqam saying that the girl was to remain a Christian and should marry a Christian, and that the abductor should not be allowed to bring litigation over the case. Then he gave the girl and the raqam to the father, and

Any form of government is a conjuring trick to some extent; even a despotism depends ultimately on the consent of subjects to be ruled, and the respect in which the rulers are held. Once the prestige and respect begin to crumble, the compliance of subjects (particularly the more unruly ones) starts to erode too, and a slide toward anarchy gathers p