Nader Shah's Indian jewels cost his blind grandson his life under torture, and a deposed shah took them into the Russian legation

In 1739 Nader Shah defeated the Mughal emperor and took Delhi. The Abbé de Claustre wrote that 5,000 chests were filled with gold rupees and 8,000 with silver, besides chests of diamonds and pearls. The haul included the Darya-ye Nur, a pink diamond of about 182 to 186 carats, and the Koh-i-Noor. Nader was assassinated in 1747. His grandson Shahrokh was blinded and reigned in name only at Mashhad for nearly fifty years. The Darya-ye Nur passed through several hands to Karim Khan Zand. In 1791 the last Zand ruler, Lotf-Ali Khan, tried to sell the crown jewels to the British. In 1794 the Qajar chief Agha Mohammad Khan took the Darya-ye Nur from Lotf-Ali Khan's armband at Kerman. In 1796 he had the blind Shahrokh tortured to reveal where the rest of Nader's gems were hidden; Shahrokh died of his injuries at Damghan. His nephew Fath-Ali Shah, who succeeded in 1797, had to put down three rebellions and recover the jewels, stolen again. In 1909 Mohammad-Ali Shah, forced to abdicate, took the crown jewels, including the Darya-ye Nur, with him into the Russian legation and returned them only under pressure from the constitutionalists. Both Pahlavi shahs wore the diamond to their coronations. It is in the jewel museum of the Central Bank of Iran in 2026.