Oghuz branch
Afshars
One of the historic Oghuz tribes, whose confederation produced Nader Shah and the Afsharid dynasty of Iran.
Afşarlar / Avşarlar
The Afshars are one of the twenty-four Oghuz tribes named in medieval Turk sources. Over the centuries Afshar groups settled across a wide arc — from Urmia and the Azerbaijan region of north-western Iran to Khorasan, Kerman and Afghanistan, and westward into Anatolia.
In 1736 Nader Shah Afshar, born in 1688 in Dastgerd in Khorasan, was crowned at the Moghan plain and founded the Afsharid dynasty. His campaigns reached from the Caucasus to India, where in 1739 his army took Delhi and carried off the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
In Anatolia, Afshar (Avşar) tribes were part of the Türkmen nomadic world; in the 19th century many were settled in the Uzunyayla and Çukurova regions, where Avşar poetry and song remain a living tradition.
- Language
- Afshar, an Oghuz Turk speech close to Azerbaijani (in Türkiye, close to Anatolian Turkish dialects)
- Branch
- Oghuz
- Homeland
- North-western Iran — historically the Urmia region of Azerbaijan — and Khorasan
- Also living in
- Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Türkiye (central and southern Anatolia), Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
Key dates
11th century
Afshar is recorded among the Oghuz tribes in Mahmud al-Kashgari’s Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk.
1688
Nader Qoli Beg, the future Nader Shah, is born in Dastgerd, Khorasan.
1736
Nader Shah is crowned at the Moghan plain, founding the Afsharid dynasty.
1739
Nader Shah’s army takes Delhi; the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor are carried to Iran.
1865
Ottoman settlement policy (Fırka-i Islahiye) settles many Avşar tribes in Uzunyayla and Çukurova.
Heritage
- Afshar rugs and kilims, especially from the Kerman region
- Avşar folk poetry, including the 19th-century poet Dadaloğlu
- Historic Afshar centres such as Urmia, and the legacy of the Afsharid period in Khorasan
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Afšār”
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Nādir Shah”
- House of Afshar, houseofafshar.org — Afshar heritage organisation