Sack of Delhi
| Invasion of Northern India | |||||||||
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| Part of the Naderian Wars | |||||||||
 Representation of Nader Shah at the sack of Delhi |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Afsharid Empire
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 Mughal Empire
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Nader Shah | Muhammad Shah | ||||||||
Decisive Persian Victory
Emperor Nader Shah, the Shah of Persia (1736–47) and the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Persia, invaded the Mughal Empire, eventually attacking Delhi in March 1739. His army had easily defeated the Mughals at the battle at Karnal and would eventually capture the Mughal capital in the aftermath of the battle.
Nader Shah's victory against the weak and crumbling Mughal Empire in the far East meant that he could afford to turn back and resume war against Persia's archrival, the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, but also the further campaigns in the North Caucasus and Central Asia.
Nader Shah became the Persian ruler in 1736, his troops captured Esfahan from the Safavid dynasty and founded the Afsharid dynasty in that year. In 1738, Nader Shah conquered Kandahar, the last outpost of the Hotaki dynasty in Afghanistan, he then began to launch raids across the Hindu Kush mountains into Northern India, which, at that time, was under the rule of the Mughal Empire. As he moved into the Mughal territories, he was loyally accompanied by his Georgian subject and future king of eastern Georgia, Erekle II, who led a Georgian contingent as a military commander as part of Nader's force.
The Mughal empire had been weakened by ruinous wars of succession in the three decades following the death of Aurangzeb, the Hindu Marathas of the Maratha Empire had captured vast swathes of territory in Central and Northern India, whilst many of the Mughal nobles had asserted their independence and founded small states. Its ruler, Muhammad Shah, proved unable to stop the disintegration of the empire. The imperial court administration was corrupt and weak whereas the country was extremely rich whilst Delhi’s prosperity and prestige was still at a high. Nader Shah, attracted by the country's wealth, sought plunder like so many other foreign invaders before him.
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