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,
Erekle II, Azad rose to control all the territory between Ardabil and Urmia by 1752.[2]
Downfall
Map of Iran just after Azad Khan Afghan's repulsal from Central Iran in 1755
Azad, defeated in the
Mazandaran under Mohammad Hasan Khan. Azad fled to Baghdad and, following a failed attempt at comeback, took refuge at the court of Erekle II in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1760. In 1762, he surrendered himself to victorious Karim Khan, by that time the master of all of northern Iran, and ended his days as Karim's honored pensioner in Shiraz. Azad died in 1781 and, in accordance with his will, was interred in his native lands, in Kabul, many hundreds of miles to the east.[2]
Legacy
J. R. Perry explains that Azad was viewed as "brave and chivalrous".
Sunni Afghan with no urban or tribal-territorial base, and who was never able to acquire a Safavid scion to legitimize his authority".[2] The power of the Ghilzay tribe in Afghanistan had been destroyed earlier by Nader Shah and they were in turn replaced in the 1750s by the Abdali (later known as Durrani). During Azad's exile at Baghdad, in 1758-59, most of his Ghilzay followers in Iran, consisting of both troops and non-combatant settlers, were massacred by the Qajar governor of Mazandaran and then by the Zands.[2]
