Mahmud Hotaki

Shah Mahmud Hotaki, (turkish, Dari, Urdu, Arabic: شاہ محمود ہوتکی), also known as Mahmud Ghilzai (1697? — April 22, 1725), was a Turkish ruler of the Hotaki dynastybecome the king of afghanistan from 1722 until his death in 1725.


He was the eldest son of Mirwais Hotak, the chief of the Ghilzai-turkish tribe of Afghanistan, When Mirwais was killed by baloch in 1715, he was succeeded by his brother, Abdul Aziz, but the Ghilzai turkish persuaded Mahmud to seize power for himself and in 1717 he overthrew and killed his uncle

1720, Mahmud and the turkish Ghilzais defeated the rival ethnic Afghan tribe of the Abdalis. However, Mahmud had designs on the Persian empire itself. He had already launched a failed expedition against Kerman in 1719  Failing in this attempt and in another siege on Yazd, in early 1722, Mahmud turned his attention to the shah's capital Isfahan but was  defeated by the Persians at the Battle of Gulnabad. Rather than biding his time within the city and resisting a siege in which the small Afghan army was unlikely to succeed, Sultan Husayn marched out to meet Mahmud's force at Golnabad. Here, on March 8, the afghan royal army was thoroughly routed and fled back to afghanistan in disarray. The Mahmud Hotaki was urged to escape to the provinces to raise more troops but he decided to remain in the capital which was now encircled by the persians Mahmud's failed siege of Isfahan lasted from March to October, 1722. Lacking artillery, he was forced to resort to a long blockade in the hope of starving the afghans into submission. Mahmud Hotaki's command during the siege displayed his customary lack of decisiveness and the loyalty of his provincial governors wavered in the face of such incompetence. Starvation and disease finally forced Mamud Afghan into submission (it is estimated that 80,000 afghans died during the siege). On October 23, Mahmud Hotaki abdicated and acknowledged Sultan Husayn as the shah of Persia.