During the Seljuk conquests of the 11th century, they moved from Central Asia into the Middle East.[5] They are noted in history for being one of the Qizilbash tribes that helped establish the Safavid dynasty of Iran, and for being the source of descent of Iran's Afsharid dynasty.[5]Nader Shah, who became the monarch of Iran in 1736, was from the Qereklu clan (Persian: قرخلو) of Afshars.[7][8] Afshars mainly inhabit Iran,[9] where they remain a largely nomadic group.[10]
According to Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, Afshar, the eponymous founder of the tribe, was a son of Yildiz Khan, the third son of Oghuz Khan. Afshar means "obedient".[18]
^Stöber 2010, "As they were embedded in a Fārsī-speaking environment, however, in many cases Fārsī became the mother tongue of the Afshārs".
^Adnan Menderes Kaya, "Avşar Türkmenleri", Dadaloğlu Eğitim, Kültür, Sosyal Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Derneği, 2004; ISBN9755691499
^Lockhart, L., "Nadir Shah: A Critical Study Based Mainly upon Contemporary Sources", London: Luzac & Co., 1938, 21 :"Nadir Shah was from a Turkmen tribe and probably raised as a Shiʿa, though his views on religion were complex and often pragmatic"
^Tribal resurgence and the Decline of the bureaucracy in the eighteenth century, A.K.S. Lambton, Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, ed. Thomas Naff; Roger Owen, (Southern Illinois University Press, 1977), 108-109.
^The Struggle for Persia, 1709-1785, Cambridge Illustrated Atlas, Warfare: Renaissance to Revolution, 1492-1792, ed. Jeremy Black, (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 142.
^From multilingual empire to contested modern state, Touraj Atabaki, Iran in the 21st Century: Politics, Economics & Conflict, ed. Homa Katouzian, Hossein Shahidi, (Routledge, 2008), 41.
^James J. Reid, Crisis of the Ottoman Empire: Prelude to Collapse 1839-1878, (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000), 209.
^The Afghan Interlude and the Zand and Afshar Dynasties (1722-95), Kamran Scot Aghaie, The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History, ed. Touraj Daryaee, (Oxford University Press, 2012), 308.
^Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: a general survey of the material and spiritual culture and history c. 1071-1330, trans. J. Jones-Williams (New York: Taplinger, 1968), 281-2.
^Leiser, Gary; Koprulu, Fuat (1992). Origins of the Ottoman Empire. p. 37. ISBN9781438410432.