Nāder Shāh Afshār, Nadir Shah (persisk: نادر شاه افشار eller Nāder Qoli Beg - نادر قلی بیگ og Tahmāsp Qoli Khān - تهماسپ قلی خان) november, 1688[1] eller 6. august 1698[2] – 19. juni 1747) var shah af Iran fra 1736 til 1747 og grundlægger af Afsharidriget. Begrund af hans militære geni, har nogle beskrivet ham som Napoleon af Persien[3] og den anden Alexander.[4] Nader Shah var medlem af en tyrkisk folkestamme i det nordlige Persien.[5]
^Nader's exact date of birth is unknown but 6 august is the "likeliest" according to Axworthy p.17 (and note) and The Cambridge History of Iran (Vol. 7 p.3); other biographers favour 1688.
^Michael Axworthy's biography of Nader, The Sword of Persia (I.B. Tauris, 2006), pp. 17-19: "His father was of lowly but respectable status, a herdsman of the Afshar tribe ... The Qereqlu Afshars to whom Nader's father belonged were a semi-nomadic Turcoman tribe settled in Khorasan in north-eastern Iran ... The tribes of Khorasan were for the most part ethnically distinct from the Persian-speaking population, speaking Turkic or Kurdish languages. Nader's mother tongue was a dialect of the language group spoken by the Turkic tribes of Iran and Central Asia, and he would have quickly learned Persian, the language of high culture and the cities as he grew older. But the Turkic language was always his preferred everyday speech, unless he was dealing with someone who knew only Persian."