Battle of Damghan (1729) in the context of "Herat Campaign of 1729"

Nader Shah Afshar (born Nader Qoli; Persian: نادرشاه افشار; 6 August 1698 or 22 October 1688 – 20 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian history, ruling as the emperor of Iran (Persia) from 1736 to 1747, when he was assassinated during a rebellion. He fought numerous campaigns throughout the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia, emerging victorious from the battles of Herat, Mihmandust, Murche-Khort, Kirkuk, Yeghevārd, Khyber Pass, Karnal, and Kars. Nader belonged to the Turkoman Afshars, one of the seven Qizilbash tribes that helped the Safavid dynasty establish their power in Iran.

Nader rose to power during a period of chaos in Iran after a rebellion by the Hotaki Afghans had overthrown the weak emperor Soltan Hoseyn (r. 1694–1722), while the arch-enemy of the Safavids, the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Russian Empire, had seized Iranian territory for themselves. Nader reunited the Iranian realm and removed the invaders. He became so powerful that he decided to depose the last members of the Safavid dynasty, which had ruled Iran for over 200 years, and declared himself Shah in 1736. His numerous campaigns created a great empire that, at its maximum extent, briefly encompassed all or part of modern-day Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, India, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Oman, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, the North Caucasus, and the Persian Gulf, but his military spending had a ruinous effect on the Iranian economy.

The Hotak dynasty (Pashto: د هوتکيانو ټولواکمني; Persian: امپراتوری هوتکیان) was an Afghan dynasty founded by Ghilji Pashtuns that briefly ruled parts of Iran and Afghanistan during the 1720s. It was established in 1709 by Mirwais Hotak, who led a successful rebellion against the declining Persian Safavid empire in the region of Loy Kandahar ("Greater Kandahar") in what is now southern Afghanistan.

In 1715, Mirwais died of natural causes and his brother Abdul Aziz succeeded him. He did not reign long as he was killed by his nephew Mahmud, who overthrew the Safavid Shah and established his own rule over Iran. Mahmud in turn was succeeded by his cousin Ashraf following a palace coup in 1725. Ashraf also did not retain his throne for long, as the Iranian conqueror Nader-Qoli Beg (later Shah), under the resurgent Safavid banner, defeated him at the Battle of Damghan in 1729. Ashraf Hotak was banished to what is now southern Afghanistan, limiting Hotak rule to just a small corner of their once large empire. Hotak rule came to an end in 1738, when Nader Shah defeated Ashraf's successor Hussain Hotak after the lengthy siege of Kandahar. Subsequently, Nader Shah began re-establishing Iranian suzerainty over regions lost to Iran's archrivals, the Ottoman and Russian Empires, decades earlier.

The Battle of Yeghevārd, also known as the Battle of Baghavard or Morad Tapeh or Arpachai or Echmiadzin, was the final major engagement of the Ottoman–Persian War of (1730–1735) where the principal Ottoman army in the Caucasus theatre under Koprulu Pasha's command was utterly destroyed by only the advance guard of Nader's army before the main Persian army could enter into the fray. The complete rout of Koprulu Pasha's forces led to a number of besieged Ottoman strongholds in the theatre surrendering as any hope of relief proved ephemeral in light of the crushing defeat at Yeghevārd. One of Nader's most impressive battlefield victories, in which he decimated a force four or five times the size of his own, it helped establish his reputation as a military genius and stands alongside many of his other great triumphs such as at Karnal, Mihmandoost or Kirkuk.