An Analysis Of The Rise And Fall Of The Afsharid Dynasty In Iran

Due to the loss of territory by the Ottoman Empire,The collapse of the monarchy in the Safavid dynasty and the Mughal Empire,and the beginning of an era dominated by European colonizers,the Islamic world of the 18 th century is mostly considered a period of decline and contraction.But underneath these facts,it is undeniable that some important transformations are also taking place in the Islamic world,many of which are development and dynamism.On the basis of clarifying the basic historical evolution of the Afsharid Dynasty,taking Nadir Shah’s three foreign wars as the context,and taking the specific role played by this regime in the construction of the modern Iranian nation-state as a clue,this paper explores the impact of the rise and fall of the Iranian Afsharid Dynasty on the transformation of the Iranian state,and objectively evaluates its function in the early modern historical development of Iran.The Iranian royal power established by Nadir Shah has the dual attributes of Turkmen-Persia,and during the effective rule of the Afsharid Dynasty over Iran,it mainly made the following achievements: first,resisting foreign invaders,restoring the territory of the Persian Empire in successive dynasties,and shaping the ruling territory of modern Iran;Second,the pursuit of the throne under secular power objectively deepened Iran’s national identity;Third,attempts to redefine the legitimacy of the Iranian royal family in terms of religion have caused changes in the relationship between clergy and monarchy,which has long affected the political and religious pattern of modern Iran;Fourth,it accumulated valuable material wealth for the successive Iranian dynasties,and also contributed to Iran’s shining national memory.In terms of time,the Afsharid Dynasty connected the Safavid dynasty and the Qajar dynasty,and it was also a period of transition from a feudal dynasty to a modern unified nation-state.In terms of spatial dimension,the Afsharid Dynasty rebuilt the territory of the Iranian Empire,was the last dynasty whose territory exceeded the Iranian plateau,and was also the middle ground connecting the territory of the remaining two Islamic empires,with the effect of connecting the east and the west.Although the Afsharid Dynasty existed for a short time,as a legal Persian regime,it had a lasting influence on the successive Iranian dynasties in terms of ruling territory,ethnic pattern,religion and culture.In the hegemony,interaction and war with the Ottoman Empire and the Mughal Empire,the great powers of the Islamic world,the Afsharid Dynasty gradually integrated into the development of world history and played a certain role,and its rise and fall has always affected the dynastic change in the Middle East and the political pattern of the Islamic world at the same time.The collapse of the Afsharid Dynasty not only mark the end of the imperial era in the Iranian plateau,but also the faltering equilibrium order of the Islamic world after the early decline of the Safavid dynasty finally ceased to exist.