Nader Shah's Central Asian campaign
| Nader Shah's Conquest of Central Asia | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Naderian Wars | |||||||||
Illustration of Nader's battle against Ilbares Khan | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Afsharid Empire |
Khanate of Bukhara Khanate of Khiva | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Nader Shah Reza Qoli Mirza Tahmasp Jalayer |
Abu al-Fayz Khan Muhammad Hakim Ilbars Khan | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| Unknown | 60,000+ | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Minimal | Heavy | ||||||||
| The leaders in bold are sovereigns | |||||||||
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During the mid-eighteenth century the Afsharid empire of Nader Shah embarked upon the conquest and annexation of the Khanates of Bukhara and Khiva. The initial engagements were fought in the late 1730s by Nader Shah's son and viceroy Reza Qoli Mirza who gained a few notable victories in this theatre while Nader was still invading India to the south. Reza Qoli's invasions of Khiva angered Ilbars Khan, the leader of Khiva. When Ilbars threatened to make a counter-attack Nader ordered hostilities to cease despite his son's successes and later returned victoriously from Delhi to embark on a decisive campaign himself.
After annexing Khiva he executed Ilbars and replaced him with Abu al-Fayz Khan, whom Nader considered to be more accepting of Nader's overlordship. The conflict resulted in the most overwhelming Persian triumph against the khanates of Central Asia in modern history and with the admixture of his previous annexation in northern India, Nader's empire in the east surpassed all other Iranian empires before it, back to the Sassanians and Achaemenids of antiquity.