Iran: Empire of the Mind by Michael Axworthy

Author:Michael Axworthy
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780141903415
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2007-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

At length Nader realised that the Ottomans were not going to accept his peace proposals, and learned that new Ottoman armies were advancing toward his frontiers. His son Nasrollah defeated one of these, and Nader achieved victory over the other, near Yerevan, in the summer of 1745. This was his last great victory, and it was followed by a treaty with the Ottomans in the following year. But by this time new revolts had broken out, driven by Nader’s oppressive practices: each place he visited was ransacked by his troops and tax collectors, as if they were plundering enemies. His demands for money reached insane levels, and cruel beatings, mutilations and killings became commonplace. His illness recurred and irritated further his mental instability. By the winter of 1746-1747 his crazy demands for money extended even to his inner circle of family and close advisers, and no-one could feel safe. His nephew, Ali Qoli, joined a revolt in Sistan and refused to return to obedience. Unlike previous rebels, Ali Qoli and his companions had contacts among Nader’s closest attendants. In June 1747 Nader was assassinated by officers of his own bodyguard near Mashhad; they burst into his tent in the harem while he was sleeping. One of the assassins cut off his arm as he raised his sword to defend himself, and then another sliced off his head.13

The short-lived nature of Nader’s achievements is one explanation for why he has not been better known outside Iran, but it is not a sufficient one. With a few exceptions Nader, having excited much interest and writing in Europe among his eigtheenth-century contemporaries, was largely ignored in the nineteenth. Why should this have been so?

Without overstating the case, it seems plausible that it was because Nader’s vigour and his successes fitted badly with the crude Victorian view of the Orient as incorrigibly decadent and corrupt, ripe for and in need of colonisation. From a purely British perspective, his military successes might then have been thought to detract from the later victories of Clive and Wellington in India, and to have conflicted with the myth of the supposedly inherent superiority of European arms; an important element in the edifice of British imperialism. By the latter part of the twentieth century the Great Men of History (as Carlyle described them) could no longer be regarded with the same hero-worship they had enjoyed before, and the oblivion to which Nader had been consigned was perhaps deepened by a general distaste for conquerors.

Nader’s historian, Mirza Mahdi Astarabadi, far from showing distaste, celebrated Nader’s victories as a sign of the favour of God, and of God’s will that Nader should reign. In this as well as other respects, Mirza Mahdi’s account serves as a conduit for Nader’s own attitudes. Writing as Nader’s official historian in Nader’s own lifetime, it was never likely that he would show any radical independence of thought. An independent observer who met him described him as ‘wise, humble, polite, attentive, and respectable…’ His history is painstakingly accurate about dates and places, with only occasional lapses.

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