Azad Khan Afghan

Azād Khān Afghān (Pashto: آزاد خان افغان‎), or Azād Shāh Afghān (Pashto: آزاد شاه افغان‎) (died 1781), was a Pashtun military commander and a major contender for supremacy in western Iran after the death of Nader Shah Afshar in 1747. Azad rose to power between 1752 and 1757, and controlled part of the Azerbaijan region up to Urmia city, northwestern and northern Persia, and parts of southwestern Turkmenistan and eastern Kurdistan. Azad was a contemporary of Ahmad Shah Durrani, the founder of the Durrani Empire.

Early life career

Azad was born in Andar town in the east of Ghazni, Afghanistan, into the Sulaimankhel clan of the Ghilji confederacy. He joined Nader Shah's army around 1738 and took part in his campaigns in India and Iran. At the time of Nader's murder, he was second-in-command to Amir Aslan Khan Qerglu Afshar, the governor of Azerbaijan.

Rise to power

Azad played a prominent role in the power struggle that followed the death of Nader. He quickly defected Aslan Khan to Nader's nephew and would-be successor, Ebrahim Mirza, and earned for himself the title of khan. In 1749, Ebrahim was himself defeated by Nader's grandson, Shahrukh Shah, Azad Khan attached himself and his Afghan cavalry to Mīr Sayyed Moḥammad, the superintendent of the shrine at Mashhad, following whose orders he withdrew to the western marches of Iran. He continued to be involved in the unrest in Iran and, through a series of alliance with local Kurd and Turkish chieftains and a policy of compromise with the Georgian ruler Erekle II Azad rose to control all the territory between Ardabil and Urmia by 1752.