At the other extremity of the empire, towards the Indies, was the prince of Candahar, who commanded a kind of martial militia, called Aghwans. This prince of Candahar was a vassal of the Persian, as the hospodars of Walachia and Moldavia are of the Turkish empire: this vassalage was not hereditary, but exactly the same with the ancient feudal tenures established throughout Europe, by that race of Tartars who overthrew the Roman empire. The Aghwan militia, of which the prince of Candahar was the head, was the same with the Albanians on the coasts of the Caspian Sea, in the neighbourhood of Daghestan, and a mixture of Circassians and Georgians, like the ancient Mamelucks who enslaved Egypt. The name of Aghwans is a corruption; Timur, whom we call Tamerlane, had led these people into India, and they remained settled in the province of Candahar, which sometimes belonged to the Mogul empire, and sometimes to that of Persia. It was these Aghwans and Lesgians who began the revolution.
Mir-Weis, or Meriwitz, intendant of the province, whose office was only to collect the tributes, assassinated the prince of Candahar, armed the militia, and continued master of the province till his death, which happened in 1717. His brother came quietly to the succession, by paying a slight tribute to the Persian court. But the son of Mir-Weis, who inherited the ambition of his father, assassinated his uncle, and began to erect himself into a conqueror. This young man was called Mir-Mahmoud, but he was known in Europe only by the name of his father, who had begun the rebellion. Mahmoud reinforced his Aghwans, by adding to them all the Guebres he could get together. These Guebres were an ancient race of Persians, who had been dispersed by the caliph Omar, and who still continued attached to the religion of the Magi (formerly flourished in the reign of Cyrus), and were always secret enemies to the new Persians. Having assembled his forces, Mahmoud marched into the heart of Persia, at the head of a hundred thousand men.
At the same time the Lesgians or Albanians, who, on account of the troublesome times, had not received their subsidies from the court of Persia, came down from their mountains with an armed force, so that the flames of civil war were lighted up at both ends of the empire, and extended themselves even to the capital.